Details
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, President. Autograph letter signed ("A. Lincoln") as President, to Colonel Benjamin B. French, Washington, D.C., 19 August 1863. 1 page, 8vo, on Executive Mansion stationery, lower margin trimmed, matted and framed with an engraved portrait.
"I have just seen the Secretary of War, who says he will return to the Trustees their own building now in the control of the Surgeon-General."
Written in reply to a letter from French of the same date, requesting that the President order the War Department to relinquish the school house of the First District of Washington, then in the possession of the War Department, who had "taken possession of the school house...for the purpose of converting it into a Medical Museum." leaving the Trustees of the Public Schools without a school-building. On behalf of the Trustees French had obtained from Lincoln the authorization to reappropriate the property, but when the City Council tried to do so, "a guard of soldiers was sent by order... of the Secy. of War, and the building stopped by force." Published in Basler, 6:397-98, quoting part of French's letter, note 1).
"I have just seen the Secretary of War, who says he will return to the Trustees their own building now in the control of the Surgeon-General."
Written in reply to a letter from French of the same date, requesting that the President order the War Department to relinquish the school house of the First District of Washington, then in the possession of the War Department, who had "taken possession of the school house...for the purpose of converting it into a Medical Museum." leaving the Trustees of the Public Schools without a school-building. On behalf of the Trustees French had obtained from Lincoln the authorization to reappropriate the property, but when the City Council tried to do so, "a guard of soldiers was sent by order... of the Secy. of War, and the building stopped by force." Published in Basler, 6:397-98, quoting part of French's letter, note 1).