?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
(SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.) LINCOLN, ABRAHAM. MILROY, MAJOR GENERAL ROBERT H. Freedom To Slaves. Original manuscript copy of General Milroy's "Handbill Order" announcing the Emancipation Proclamation to his troops and the people of Winchester; together with a retained copy of a letter to President Lincoln regarding the incident and the Proclamation and another retained copy of a letter to Mrs. Amos Binney of the U.S. Sanitary and Christian Commission in reference to the donation of "four of my papers" (including the present "Handbill") for a Sanitary Fair. 4to's 2 pages, two pages and one page respectively with docketing on reverse. should be seen Vp, 1863-1864
On January 5th 1863, just prior to the second battle of Winchester, Virginia Major General Robert H. Milroy, (1816-1890), having received information that the Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation, was so moved that he wrote an official "handbill order" titled "Freedom To Slaves" announcing and enforcing the Proclamation. This "handbill," once printed was to be distributed among the people of Winchester, as well as his troops and stated, in no uncertain terms, that any persons not following the letter of the law would be prosecuted. As it later turned out, through a series of gross tactical errors, the battle of Winchester was a debacle and Milroy's troops were, in his own words "gobbled up." On January 1st 1864, Milroy wrote to President Lincoln to tell him how the Emancipation Proclamation had so moved him. He tells how he had written the special "handbill" and how his troops had been so encouraged by it that "as we marched on, some of the Regt.s struck up 'We are Coming Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more,' and others" In the last letter, Milroy writes to Amos Binney of the Sanitary Commission consigning some of his papers (Presumably these among them) for fund raising.
