Jun 7, 2007 3:05 pm US/Central
Lincoln Letter: 'A Significant Find'
WASHINGTON (CBS News) ―
The National Archives unveiled on Thursday a handwritten note by Abraham Lincoln exhorting his generals to pursue Robert E. Lee's Confederate army after the battle of Gettysburg, underscoring one of the great missed opportunities for an early end to the Civil War.
Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein describes the letter as "a significant find," reports CBS News correspondent Peter Maer.
Gettysburg, a town in southern Pennsylvania, marked the farthest northward penetration by the rebellious southern army in the 1861-65 war, which ended slavery in the United States. During three days of fighting July 1-3, 1863, the Confederates suffered 28,063 dead, injured or missing and the U.S. side 23,047.
An archives Civil War specialist discovered the July 7, 1863, note from President Lincoln three weeks ago in a batch of military papers stored among the billions of pages of historical documents at the mammoth building on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.
The text of Lincoln's note has been known because the general to whom Lincoln addressed it telegraphed the contents verbatim to the front lines at Gettysburg. There, the Union army's leaders failed for more than a week to pursue Lee aggressively after his defeat.
A week after Lincoln's note, the Confederate army slipped across the Potomac River into Virginia, and the war continued for two more years.
Although Gen. George Meade led the Northern troops in the battle at Gettysburg that marked the turning point of the war, he has always been faulted for not closing in and destroying Lee's army.
At a news conference, archivist Trevor Plante said he was looking for something else last month when he found Lincoln's note tucked away in a drawer among other papers. His reaction was "wow" when he recognized the handwriting and Lincoln's signature.
(© 2007 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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