Letter from Abraham Lincoln to New York Republican organizer Ben Field on August 29, 1863 written from the Executive Mansion.
Lincoln wrote: “Herewith is a copy of the Springfield letter, as requested. Do not let it become public until your meeting shall have come off–or, perhaps, I should say ‘come on.'”
The Springfield letter to which Lincoln refers was written to James Conkling in Illinois just days earlier in defense of the Emancipation Proclamation. When news of the letter reached Field, he telegraphed the President requesting a copy to be read at a mass convention in Syracuse. Lincoln complied with Field’s request, attaching the brief note seen here, to aid his Republican ally is spreading his message on emancipation.