Offering a pardon for a Confederate diplomat
Abraham Lincoln, 9 January 1865
LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-1865). Autograph letter signed ("A. Lincoln") as President to Mrs. [sic Miss] Faulkner, Washington, 9 January 1865.

One page, 204 x 255mm, bifolium, on Executive Mansion stationery (small repairs, not affecting text; reinforcements along folds to verso). Later endorsements on bottom and on verso.

Lincoln offers to pardon Charles James Faulkner on the condition that both he and his son take the oath of allegiance. Charles James Faulkner had been serving as Minister to France under President James Buchanan when the Civil War erupted. Recalled by the incoming Lincoln administration, federal authorities promptly arrested him upon his return to Washington over accusations that the former minister negotiated sales of arms to the Confederacy. He was later exchanged, and upon his return home to Virginia, promptly joined the Confederate army, serving on the staff of Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. Union forces captured Captain Elisha Boyd Faulkner, the brother of the addressee in June 1864, and he confined on Johnson's Island at the time of Lincoln made the offer for pardon: "I now distinctly say that if your Father shall come within our lines and take the oath of Dec. 8, 1863, I will give him a full pardon, and will, at the same time, discharge your brother on his taking the oath, notwithstanding he is a captain." The endorsements reveal that Elisha Boyd Faulkner took the oath of allegiance on 30 May 1865 but his father refused Lincoln's offer.