American Historical Ephemera & Photography

LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-1865). Fascimile of autograph letter signed ("Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States"), Washington, D.C., on "Executive Mansion" letterhead, to General Henry Hastings Sibley of Minnesota, colonel of the Minnesota state militia, 6 December 1862. Boston: Heliotype Printing Co., ca 1879. 3pp, 7 7/8 x 10 1/4 in. (toned along edges, previously folded into sixths with some tears at folds, light soil, older archival tape attaching the two leaves plus three pieces of framers tape at edges). Lincoln's authorization for the execution of 39 Sioux Indians found guilty of crimes during the Sioux Outbreak of 1862. Facsimile document apparently pulled from wrappers as published and later framed but offered here without frame and only in mat. Eleven manuscript notes in pencil from unknown hand appear along side the phonetic names of the condemned Indians. 

[With:] SIBLEY, Brigadier General Henry H. (1811-1891). Autograph note signed ("H.H. Sibley"), to unknown recipient ("Dear Sir"), St. Paul [MN], 9 July 1889. 1p, 5 3/4 x 5 1/8 in. (center fold, two pieces of framer's tape at top and bottom edge). Sibley writes in response to a request for an autograph of President Lincoln, replying that, "I have none such, except where affixed to official documents. Truly Yours, H. H. Sibley. "

[Also with:] Modern copy of a hand colored print, 10.5 x 8 in., titled "Execution of the Thirty-Eight Sioux Indians at Mankato Minnesota December 26, 1862."

Facsimile Lincoln letter documents the presidential order for the largest mass-hanging in United States history, when 38 Sioux Indians were executed at Mankato, Minnesota, December 26, 1862, for their part in the Sioux Outbreak of 1862. More than three hundred Indians were condemned to death by a shoddy military commission but the President's approval was required before any execution could take place. In the midst of the American Civil War, President Lincoln reviewed the military commission record of each condemned prisoner before finally choosing 39 (one Indian received a last-minute reprieve) Indians for execution. Lincoln stated that he only wanted to execute those found guilty of rape or murder, not merely participation in the uprising. The mass execution took place with the mass gallows constructed upon the Main Street of Mankato, MN directly opposite the jail. At an executive council meeting of the Minnesota Historical Society of June 12, 1876, Henry Sibley suggested that the "celebrated manuscript order" be lithographed and distributed. This being a copy of that facsimile, of which six are known to exist today, according to OCLC, (January 2018).