The University of Michigan Library provides access to these materials for educational and research purposes, with permission from their copyright holder. If you decide to use any of these materials, you are responsible for making your own legal assessment and securing any necessary permission.
I decline to sign the within, because it does not state the thing quite to my liking. The colored man William Johnson came with me from Illinois, and I would be glad for him to be obliged, if he can be consistently with the public service; but I can not make an
order about it, nor a request which might, in some sort, be construed as an order. A. LINCOLN.
Dec. 17, 1862