LINCOLN APPOINTS CIVIL WAR CHAPLAIN THAT WOULD INFLUENCE THE WRITINGS OF WALT WHITMAN
LINCOLN, Abraham (1809-1885). Autograph endorsement signed (“A. Lincoln”), [Washington D.C.], 4 December 1861, comprising six lines total, plus signature and dateline. Accomplished on the verso of a letter of recommendation from all congressional delegates from the state of Maine, endorsing Rev. Eliphalet W. Jackson for the position of Chaplain in the Army, 4 December 1861.
Two pages, bifolium, 126 x 202 mm, additionally endorsed by HAMLIN, Hannibal (1809-1891), COLFAX, Schuyler (1823-1885), and FESSENDEN, William P. (1806-1869).
Lincoln endorses Eliphalet W. Jackson for chaplaincy in the U.S. army. The adjoining letter is likely penned by John N. Goodwin, then-Maine Congressman and later the first Governor of the Arizona Territory. Goodwin’s letter is co-signed by the entire delegation of Maine congressional delegates, including Frederick A. Pike, John H. Rice, Charles W. Walton, Samuel C. Fessenden, and Anson P. Morrill. Onto this original letter, Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, William P. Fessenden adds an additional five-line endorsement, which is co-signed by Hannibal Hamlin, Schuyler Colfax, and one other unidentified individual. Finally, Lincoln pens the following endorsement: “…Rev. Eliphalet W. Jackson being within recommended by the Maine delegation for a Chaplaincy in the Army, if there be a vacancy let him be appointed to it…”
Eliphalet W. Jackson served as chaplain in Armory Square Hospital in Washington D.C., where Walt Whitman would volunteer to assist wounded veterans. His time at the hospital would profoundly impact his later writings, stating in “The Wound Dresser” that “…I devote myself much to Armory-square hospital because it contains by far the worst cases, most repulsive wounds, has the most suffering and most need of consolation. I go every day without fail, and often at night…” Whitman refers to Jackson — though not by name — in an 1 August 1863 letter to Lewis K. Brown, in which he details the chaplain’s brave rescue of a child borne by the wife of a soldier struck by gangrene. Ardently patriotic, according to the March 7, 1863 issue of the Washington National Republican, Rev. Jackson reportedly proposed a lengthy resolution at a hospital party, which began: “Resolved, That the rebellion now waged against our Government is the most wicked and atrocious of any since the days of Satan, Absalom, or Judas.”
