Lincoln Editor

              July - September 2008 Volume 8 Number 3
NATIONAL ARCHIVES TO DIGITIZE LINCOLN DOCUMENTS IN VAULT
The Papers of Abraham Lincoln and the National
Archives and Records Administration have reached an
agreement to digitize approximately 13,000 pages of Lincoln
materials from the National Archives vaults. The agreement
covers documents in the vaults at both Archives II in College
Park, Maryland, and at the National Archives Building in
Washington, D.C.
Included among the treasures in the vaults are both
international and Indian treaties signed by Abraham Lincoln,
presidential telegrams, executive orders, select diplomatic
correspondence, nominations sent to the Senate, and a
variety of letters written by and to Lincoln during his
presidency. The nominations include several members of his
cabinet, that of Salmon P. Chase as Chief Justice of the United
States Supreme Court, and one from March 1861 nominating
Robert E. Lee for promotion in the United States Army.
There are Black Hawk War muster rolls from
Captain Lincoln’s company and from the companies of which
he was later a soldier, Lincoln’s compiled military service
record, as well as later land warrants based on his service in
that war. From his single-term Congressional career, there
are Lincoln’s “Spot” resolutions regarding the Mexican War,
his patent for a device to buoy boats over shoals, and several
letters of recommendation for constituents.
Staff members in the Preservation Programs division
of the National Archives will digitize the materials to the
project’s technical specifications and deliver the master
images to Papers of Abraham Lincoln staff in College Park
and Washington. The Papers of Abraham Lincoln will support
the salary of a digital imaging technician for one year to
conduct the work. The digitization will begin this fall and
continue into 2009.
The Papers of Abraham Lincoln appreciates the
assistance of Doris A. Hamburg, Director of Preservation
Programs at the National Archives, and other members of
the National Archives staff in preparing this agreement.
JUDGE TREAT MEMORIAL DEDICATED
On June 20, Director Daniel Stowell delivered an address
at the dedication of the newly erected obelisk in memory
of Samuel H. Treat. During the past three years, the Papers
of Abraham Lincoln has assisted the Hon. Richard Mills,
judge of the U.S. District Court, and the Illinois Bar
Foundation in soliciting the funds necessary to erect the grave
marker.
After raising public awareness of Judge Treat’s
contributions to the nineteenth-century bench and raising
funds, this coalition placed a fifteen-foot obelisk over his grave
in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois. As a justice
of the Illinois Supreme Court for fourteen years, and as a
federal judge for thirty-two years beginning in 1855, Treat
heard more than one thousand cases in which Abraham
Lincoln was an attorney. Daniel Stowell at the Dedication Ceremony