Sold – President Lincoln Wishes “God-speed” to Those Seeking to Help Emancipated Slaves

President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. No event in American history matches the drama of that Emancipation. It not only liberated some 4 million slaves, but freed the entire nation from the moral, political and economic shackles that slavery imposed. After his death it would be the key ingredient in elevating Lincoln above the sphere of high politics and leadership.

In early 1865, the impending end of the Civil War increased immensely and immediately the already existing problem of dealing with the freed slaves. Whereas up till then the Union armies were liberating some slaves, now the nation was being presented with the task of managing the entire transition from slavery to freedom. The Union leadership, especially President Lincoln, had to find ways, and find funds, to provide lodging, food and clothing to the freed slaves; to build schools and hospitals, and hire teachers and doctors, to provide education and medical aid to them; to help former slaves find jobs and negotiate terms of employment; to aid them in finding family members who had been sold into slavery elsewhere; to offer them a wide range of advice; and to see that they received fair treatment. President Lincoln introduced into Congress a bill to establish a temporary federal agency, the Freedmen’s Bureau, to handle these necessities for the first year after the war’s end. It made its way through Congress in February 1865, and the issues it addressed were much on the President’s mind at that time; it would become law on March 4. But the Freedmen’s Bureau would have nowhere near the personal and financial resources necessary to accomplish these gargantuan tasks, the legacy of over 200 years of slavery, poverty and suffering. He, and the freed slaves, would need all the private help they could get.

Some non-governmental charities were established during the war to aid the increasing number of former slaves meet their pressing needs. One of these was the National Freedman’s Aid Society of London, England, of which Frederick Tompkins was secretary. That organization commissioned a fact-finding trip to the South to determine for itself what it could best do to help, and Tompkins and one of his associates, C.C. Leigh, arrived in the United States in February 1865. However, in wartime America, travel from the North into the South required passage through military lines, and this required often difficult to obtain authorization. Henry Ward Beecher, Tompkins’ contact in New York, was a warm friend of Lincoln and a major supporter of emancipation; he wrote the President on February 23 with a letter of introduction for Tompkins:?“The bearer, Fredk. Tompkins is a fast friend of the North, tho’ an Englishman. He has been restlessly active in England for us. He comes now to collect facts about the freedman that he may aid us still more on his return.”

This is the pass Tompkins received to accomplish his mission. Document Signed, War Department, Washington, February 27, 1865, a card passing “Frederick Tompkins of the National Freedman’s Aid Society of London” to specific Confederate cities now in Union hands, including “Norfolk, Va., Charleston S.C., and Savannah, Georgia,” and to “return with transportation at half rates on a Govt. Transport.” On the verso of the card at top, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton approves: “Transportation free. E.M. Stanton.” Beneath, President Lincoln has dated the card and written: “I heartily commend Dr. Tompkin’s object, and bid him God-speed in it. A. Lincoln.” At the bottom, General U.S. Grant concurs, expanding the scope of territory open to Tompkins by instructing “Pass Mr. F. Tomkins through all parts of the Armies of the U. States. U.S. Grant, Lt. Gen., City Point, Va. March 2, 1865.” This document is cited in Basler’s “Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln”, which also mentions a similar pass given on the same date to Tompkins’ colleague C.C. Leigh.  

Lincoln’s endorsement here is anything but formulaic; it discloses real emotion. We have searched the papers of the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, the Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, auction records going back 38 years, and the primary resource in the field, Basler’s “Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln.” We discovered that Lincoln is only recorded to have wished anyone “God-speed” in writing twice in his life, and those two instances are in the documents he signed at this time for Tompkins and Leigh. Thus, the only time Lincoln wrote God-speed to someone – wishing the aid of God in the successful achievement of their task – was in relation to emancipated slaves.

Moreover, we have never before, in our decades of experience, seen any piece signed by both Lincoln and Grant on the market. Our research discloses that the last time such a piece appeared publicly was over a quarter of a century ago, at the sale of the glorious Sang Collection.