Offered is a James Garfield handwritten and signed letter, dated September 30, 1864, campaigning on behalf of Abraham Lincoln in the 1864 Presidential Election. The 5 x 6 ½-inch lined white paper cut is “tipped in” on a 6 x 7½-inch white card. Garfield has written to W. E. Ambler, the chairman of the central committee for Lincoln’s campaign in black pen, “Yours from Hillsdale reached me yesterday at Plymouth. I should be very glad to assist you in the canvas – but every day is promised from now to the October election. I go next week to southern & central Ohio. In haste, yours, J. A. Garfield. PS I answered you by telegraph yesterday.” Garfield was writing from the campaign trail in La Porte, Indiana. In the midst of the Civil War, the incumbent President Lincoln easily defeated the Democratic nominee, former General George B. McClellan, by a wide margin of 221–21 electoral votes, with 55 percent of the popular vote. Garfield, who served as a Major General for the Union in the Civil War, was the 20th U.S. President, serving from March 4, 1881 until his death by assassination six and a half months later. He was the first sitting member of the U.S. House of Representatives to be elected to the presidency and remains the only sitting House member to gain the White House. This item comes with a LOA from JSA.

Auction Notepad