To Simon Cameron1Jump to section
If the public service admits of a change, without injury, in the office of chief clerk of the War Department, I shall be pleased of [sic] my friend, E. Elmer Ellsworth,2Jump to section who presents you this, shall be appointed. Of course, if you see good reason to the contrary, this is not intended to be arbitrary. Yours truly A LINCOLN
Hon. Simon Cameron.
Annotation
[1] ALS, DLC-Cameron Papers.
[2] Colonel Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth was a young law student of Chicago who in 1860 had raised and trained a company of Zouaves which became famous for drill exhibitions. On Lincoln's invitation he accompanied the presidential party to Washington. Being inclined to active military service instead of a clerkship, he proceeded to New York to organize a Zouave regiment. His spectacular death at Alexandria, Virginia, occurred May 24, 1861, when he was shot by the proprietor of a hotel from the roof of which he was removing a Confederate flag. He is usually credited with being the first casualty of the Civil War. See Lincoln's letter to Ellsworth's parents, May 25, infra. Although there is considerable confusion of Ellsworth's first and second names, the Dictionary of American Biography accepts ``Elmer Ephraim'' on the basis of a manuscript account written by Ellsworth's mother.