To Silas Noble1Jump to section
Your letter of the 16th is just received. I will place your name on my book, and send you such documents as you desire, when I can get them. The entire war correspondence is in course of printing, and will be the best electioneering document, when completed. I will then send you a copy of it.
You ask how Turner2Jump to section stands. I answer, moderate---fair---about an average of new members.
I have procured a couple of copies of Stewart's3Jump to section speech and sent you, and he and I join cordially in the hope, that your hope of McLean's nomination may be disappointed---not that we wish you disappointed in the abstract, nor that we have anything against Judge McLean; but because we are entirely sure he is not ``a winning card.'' Your sincere friend, A. LINCOLN.
Annotation
[1] Telegraph and Herald (Dixon, Illinois), August 31, 1871. Present location of the original letter has not been identified. The following account of the letter is given in the Telegraph and Herald: ``In making some changes of desks in the Lee County National Bank . . . there was discovered, in an old drawer, with other letters and papers belonging to the late Col. Silas Noble, the following letter. . . . Thos. J. Turner stands to-day about as Mr. Lincoln said he stood then. . . . ''
[2] Thomas J. Turner, lawyer and leading Democratic politician of Freeport, Illinois, was a member of the Thirtieth Congress.
[3] Probably Andrew Stewart, Whig, of Pennsylvania.