Certificate of Appointment for William Carpenter as Paymaster, 30 April 18321
I do hereby certify that William Carpenter is duly appointed Pay Master in the fourth regiment on the detachment of mounted volunteers called into the service of the United Stateshe is therefore required diligently and carefuly to discharge the duties of said office—2 given under my hand this 30–day of April 1832
Samuel M ThompsonCol—[Colonel] 4th Reg. Vols
1Abraham Lincoln wrote this document and signed Samuel M. Thompson’s name at the bottom as well.
At the outbreak of the Black Hawk War, Lincoln volunteered for the Illinois state militia. On April 21, 1832, Lincoln and other men from the New Salem area were mustered into a company in the 4th Regiment of Illinois Mounted Volunteers,
and the members of the company elected Lincoln as their captain. When his month of
service ended, Lincoln re-enlisted twice, for twenty and thirty days respectively,
serving as a private both times. He was discharged finally on July 10, 1832.
Muster Roll of Abraham Lincoln’s Company of Mounted Volunteers; Muster Roll of Captain Elijah Iles’ Company of Mounted Volunteers; Muster Roll of Captain Jacob M. Early’s Company of Mounted Volunteers; Ellen M. Whitney, comp., The Black Hawk War, 1831-1832: Illinois Volunteers, vol. 35 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1970), 1:176-78, 227-30, 544-46.
Handwritten Document Signed with a Representation, 1 page(s), Taper Collection, Lincoln Presidential Foundation (Springfield, IL).