Lincoln, Abraham (1809-1865) to David Hunter
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC04001 Author/Creator: Lincoln, Abraham (1809-1865) Place Written: Washington, D.C. Type: Manuscript document signed Date: 10 February 1863 Pagination: 2 p. ; 25 x 20.5 cm. Order a Copy
To Major General Hunter, Commander of the Department of the South, Brigadier General Rufus Saxton, military governor of the region including South Carolina, A. C. Smith, W. E. Wording, and William Henry Brisbane. President Lincoln authorizes these men to "select for Government use, for War, Military, Naval, revenue, Charitable, Educational or police purposes such tracts, parcels or lots of land, within the State of South Carolina, from the lands which may have been or which may hereafter be offered for sale by the Direct Tax Commissioners in said State." Authorizes the men's action based on a 7 June 1862 Act of Congress, and states that Hunter and Saxton, as well as two of the three other men, may constitute a quorum when selecting the land. Contains a stain along the left side of both pages.
The Rev. William Henry Brisbane was a former Southern slave owner who manumitted his slaves prior to the war and became a fervent abolitionist. In 1862, Brisbane was appointed as a tax commissioner in Beaufort, South Carolina, to supervise the sale of plantations confiscated from Confederate ownership. The 17 July 1862 Second Confiscation and Militia Act, under which these Confederate estates were appropriated, also freed slaves owned by Rebels, paving the way for their admission into the U.S. military.
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