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Note from Abraham Lincoln to John Wilkes Booth

During the late 1800s in Cincinnati, Ohio, a wooden desk was purchased from a storage sale. The desk would remain at the owner's home in Sterns, Kentucky, until his death in 1947. The desk was then relocated by a family member to Lexington, Kentucky, where it remained stored in an attic until its rediscovery in 1968 by the owner's son.

The son discovered a drawer support broken. While in the process of repairing it, he found a small folded paper in an envelope, and photo lodged underneath the desk toward the back portion of the drawer. The paper is a handwritten note addressed to Mr. Booth from A. Lincoln. The photo is that of a man and woman, having the name H. Burnett written on the back.

After an exhausting year of failed attempts to identify his discovery (in 1970), the son sent a personal letter accompanied by the Lincoln /Booth note and the photo to J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, asking for his assistance.

In response to the letter, Mr. Hoover identified the note as having been written by President Abraham Lincoln, and further identified the names mentioned therein. Miss Hale is identified as John Wilkes Booths' fiance and daughter of John Parker Hale, Lincoln's Ambassador to Spain. Mr. Forbes is identified as Lincoln's assistant.

Hoover's letter states that the photo was that of General Henry Lawrence Burnett who was assigned to General Burnside's Headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio, during the Civil War. General Burnett was a Special Judge Advocate for the trial of President Lincoln's Assassination.

Mr. Hoover acknowledged that the FBI was currently (1970s) investigating Lincoln's assassination based on evidence that Booth may have escaped capture. (This investigation is viewable with the Freedom of Information Act.)

Documented histoical accounts including trial witness, evidence the note's significance in relation to Lincoln's assassination. This letter and photo, accompanied by the verification letter from J. Edgar Hoover, are being sold as one lot.

Condition: Fair

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