Annotation
[1] AES, RTL. Lincoln's memorandum is written on a letter from Charles E. Sherman, attorney for men enlisted in the Fifteenth New York Volunteer Engineers, June 6, 1864, as follows:
``If, from your Examination of the Evidence in favor of the discharge of the Recruits to fill up the 15th N.Y. Vol. Engineers, you are Enabled to inform me whether they will be presently discharged according to their contract of Enlistment, as interpreted to them by word & Certificate of honor, by all the Federal & State Officers at the time of their Enlistment;---or Even that they will be discharged in a short time, after their present duties are performed, in the Existing Crises, I shall be exceedingly obliged to you if you will do so, as I wish to leave the city tomorrow.
``On the 17th. inst., these men will have been illegally detained, one year. . . .
``P.S. I am sure there is no other case like that of these men, & their number is but ab[o]ut 186 in all.''
The Fifteenth New York Engineers had been mustered on May 9, 1861, and men who enlisted in June, 1862, to fill the ranks thought they were enlisting for the unexpired portion of the three-year enlistment, which would have ended May 9, 1864.