President Lincoln Comes to the Aid of an Old Friend

September 18, 1863

President Lincoln writes Mrs. Hannah Armstrong, whose husband had been a good friend in his twenties: “I have just ordered the discharge of your boy William, as you say, now at Louisville, Ky.”   The Armstrongs were old family friends of the president – dating to his years in New Salem, Illinois.  A family friend apparently wrote the president at Hannah’s request to discharge William Armstrong, who was suffering from rheumatism.

President Lincoln also deals with reconstruction –  writing Tennessee Governor Andrew Johnson: “Despatch of yesterday just received. I shall try to find the paper you mention, and carefully consider it. In the mean time let me urge that you do your utmost to get every man you can, black and white, under arms at the very earliest moment, to guard roads, bridges and trains, allowing all the better trained soldiers to go forward to Rosecrans. Of course I mean for you to act in co-operation with, and not independently of, the military authorities.”  President Lincoln writes Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton: “Gov. Johnson, of Tenn. in his despatch, mentions a paper which he says he drew up, on re-organization, which I indorsed in some way, & which I understand him to suppose is on file in your Department. If it is there, please send me a copy of it.”

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