To Thomas Ewing1Jump to section
Hon. Secretary of the Interior
Dear Sir
Yours of the 18th in answer to my inquiries concerning the letters of Messrs. Thompson & Embree is received, and for which I thank you. You are deceived---to some extent at least. Mr. Caffee did not inform me at the time he gave me the bundle, or at any time, that any letters filed in my favor, had been retained. He did not give me the bundle in person; but it was sent to my lodging, accompanied by a letter from yourself, which letter, now before me, contains no indication that any of the letters had been retained. On the contrary it speaks of the papers as an unbroken series, ``numbered from 75 to 183 inclusive, with a small package file at a late hour yesterday''
Again, if the letters of Mssrs. Thompson & Embree, were retained under the rule you state, then that rule was applied with a strange partially in this case, for I have now under my eye, taken from the bundle mentioned, each with a brief upon it made in your office eight letters falling completely within that rule. Five of them are addressed to the President, one to a third person, & two to yourself; all speak of Mr. B. in the same tone as Mssrs. Thompson & Embree, and none of them was ever in my possession, till they came to me in the bundle referred to. But the strangest of all is, that one of these eight letters, now before me, is the the [sic] identical letter of A.G. Henry,2Jump to section which you expressly state in your letter, has been retained by you, or by Mr. Caffee, under the rule. Because of these things, I have ventured to say you are deceived. Your Obt. Servt
A. LINCOLN