To Mrs. Abraham H. Hoge1Jump to section
Dear Madam Washington, Nov. 25. 1862.
Your note of this morning is just received. If I can learn that your son has a commission from the Governor, enabling me to give him a staff appointment, and then any Brigadier General entitled to another staff officer, will ask to have your son for the place, I will appoint him. Without the first condition, it is not lawful for me to appoint him; and without the second, it would obviously be improper. Preserve this note & send it to me with any papers you may send, as evidence on the points named. Yours &c.
A. LINCOLN
Annotation
[1] ALS, DLC-RTL. Mrs. Hoge's note is not in the Lincoln Papers. Both she and her husband were active in organizing the Chicago Sanitary Fair of 1863. Her son Holmes Hoge enlisted as a private in the Chicago Mercantile Battery on August 17, 1862, and his appointment as captain and assistant quartermaster was confirmed on March 13, 1863. Another son, Captain George Blaikie Hoge of the Twenty-fifth Missouri Infantry, was appointed colonel of the One Hundred Thirteenth Illinois on October 1, 1862, and brevetted brigadier general of Volunteers as of March 13, 1865. Mrs. Hoge's maiden name was Blaikie. See further Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Hoge January 6, and Lincoln's endorsement to Stanton, February 8, 1863, infra.