Abraham Lincoln Papers

Overview

The Abraham Lincoln Papers is a manuscript collection held by the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., comprising correspondence and other documents relating primarily to Abraham Lincoln's presidency and the Civil War, alongside earlier material from his career as an Illinois lawyer and congressman.

History

Robert Todd Lincoln (1843-1926), Lincoln's oldest son, arranged for the organization and care of his father's papers shortly after Lincoln's assassination on April 14, 1865. The collection was formally given to the Library of Congress, with the bulk of items acquired through gifts, transfers, deposits, purchases, and reproductions occurring across the years 1901 to 2013. In accordance with the terms of Robert Todd Lincoln's gift, the papers remained closed to the public until 1947. During World War II, the Lincoln Papers were evacuated from the Library on December 29, 1941, under the supervision of Alvin W. Kremer, Keeper of the Collections, to the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, with the second inaugural address and two drafts of the Gettysburg Address separately evacuated to Fort Knox, Kentucky; all items were returned to the Library by September 1944 without loss or damage. The collection was arranged, indexed, and microfilmed in 1960, with the Manuscript Division's Index to the Abraham Lincoln Papers created that year. Subsequent additions were arranged and described in 1973, 1979, 1985, 1987, 2010, and 2013. Digital images from the microfilm were first made available online in 2001, and a full-color, expanded digital presentation was completed in a multi-year digitization project in collaboration with agencies in Illinois.

Collections, Holdings, and Publications

The collection contains approximately 40,550 documents dating from 1774 to 1948, with most material spanning the 1850s through Lincoln's presidency (1861-1865); more than 20,000 of these documents (roughly 62,000 images) are digitized and available online, along with transcriptions of about 10,000 documents. The papers are arranged in four main series: Series 1 (General Correspondence and Related Documents, 1833-1916, largely inherited by Robert Todd Lincoln, including the water-damaged "Carpet Bag Documents"); Series 2 (Additional Correspondence, 1858-1865, retained by Lincoln's secretary John G. Nicolay); Series 3 (Miscellaneous, 1837-1897, acquired from various sources); and Series 4 (Addenda, 1774-1948, including original letters by Lincoln, an 1859 autobiographical sketch, and reproductions of government and military documents from the National Archives). Notable items include drafts of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln's first and second inaugural addresses, and early copies of the Gettysburg Address.

Access and Usage

The papers are open to research; researchers are advised to contact the Manuscript Reading Room in advance of a visit, as many items are stored off-site and require advance notice for retrieval. The Library of Congress's digital scans of Lincoln's papers are in the public domain.