Letter (ALS) of Rep. George H. Yeaman of Kentucky, to President Abraham Lincoln, recommending the release of Confederate prisoners having sworn allegiance to the government, 1865. On letterhead of the outgoing 38th United States Congress, of which Yeaman was a member. Fold lines and mounting remnants verso.
Datlined Washington City, Feb. 27, 1864. Recommends the release "under the amnesty oath" of two Kentucky soldiers who sided with the Confederacy and were being held by Union forces. In a postscript dated Feb. 28, Yeaman adds the names of seven more rebels, signing again verso.
Yeaman, a judge from Davis County and staunch Unionist, was a member of the Kentucky state house when elected to the 37th Congress to fill a vacancy left by the death of James Jackson, killed at the Battle of Perryville. He was defeated for reelection in 1864, and later appointed minister to Denmark by Lincoln, serving under three presidents until he resigned in 1870 to become a lecturer on Constitutional law at Columbia.
Letters written to presidents by members of Congress on matters of official state business seldom come to market. Given Lincoln's reputation for magniminity when it came to pardons, and Yeaman's long established loyalty, it is hard to imagine that the Congressman's intercession on behalf of fellow Kentuckians would be given a cold reception by the White House.
