A group of two (2) documents related to Lincoln's call to draft troops in New York. Items include: 

1. Autograph letter signed by Assistant Adjutant General John B. Stonehouse, to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. General New York State Head Quarters, Albany, [New York], 23 February 1864. 1 page, 4to. With original "Official Business" envelope addressed to Stanton. 

The Assistant Adjutant General of New York writes to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton for paperwork regarding President Lincoln's call for 500,000 troops.

In full: "I am directed by His Excellency Governor Seymour respectfully to request, that he may be furnished with a copy of the report of the Commission appointed to enquire into the correctness of the Quota assigned to the State of New York, under the recent calls of the President." 

2. Letter signed by Chairman of the New York Volunteer Committee Orison Blunt, to Colonel Stonehouse. New York, 12 October 1864. 1 page, 4to, on Head-Quarters County Volunteer Committee letterhead. 

A letter to Assistant Adjutant General Stonehouse in recognition of his efforts to draft the required number of soldiers. The letter reads in part: "a substantial token of the appreciation of the New York County Volunteer Committee of your kind efforts in aiding them to fill the Quota under the President's Call for Five Hundred Thousand Men. Please accept from me, who have been personally cognizant of your exertions in our behalf the expression of my sincerest regard and the hope that the contents of the box sent you may prove as satisfactory to you in the reception, as it is to us in the transmission." 

Horatio Seymour (1810-1886), the Democratic Governor of New York, was a Unionist but also critical of Lincoln's leadership and was consistently reluctant to provide the mandated quotas of troops. Seymour questioned the military draft of 1863 on constitutional grounds. On 1 February 1864, Lincoln called for an additional 500,000 troops, and this letter, sent by Stonehouse on behalf of Seymour, who evidently wanted the demand in writing. 

John B. Stonehouse (1813-1885) was a civil servant in Albany whose organizational talents were recognized during the war. In 1861, he was appointed chief clerk to New York Adjutant General J. Meredith Read and was promoted to Assistant Adjutant General with the rank of Colonel in May 1864. He was instrumental in helping to fill New York's quotas, as evidenced by the appreciative and thoughtful letter from Orison Blunt (1815-1879). Blunt himself was a prominent arms inventor, manufacturer, and importer. An alderman of New York, he was a major supplier of rifles to the Union Army and had invented the pepper-box gun, a predecessor of the Gatling gun. He wrote this letter in his capacity as a member of the Board of Supervisors, an organization that ensured that New York met their draft quotas by offering large bounties to recruits and substitutes. 

A fascinating pair of documents related to the controversial 1864 New York draft. 

[Abraham Lincoln, Politics, Mary Todd Lincoln, 1860 Election, Election of 1860, 1864 Election, Election of 1864,  Lincoln Assassination, John Wilkes Booth] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs] [Civil War, Union, Confederate]

Toning to old folds. Envelope soiled, toned, and creased.