Elihu B. Washburne to Abraham Lincoln, 22 March 18491
Washington D.C.March 22/49Dear Sir:
If you have a land warrant sent you for William Milton father of James Milton, please send it to me at Galena, as it is one of my cases,2
Yours,E B WashburneHon A Lincoln2Abraham Lincoln’s response, if he penned one, has not been located.
In December 1848, Lincoln wrote a letter to the Department of the Treasury on behalf of the Miltons. The case involved James Milton, deceased, and Thomas Leakley,
Company F, 2nd Illinois Volunteers, whose back pay from their service in the Mexican War was being sought by William Milton through Lincoln and the firm of Hempstead & Washburne.
Public land sales records show that William Milton received 240 acres by warrant in
February and April 1848 in Apple River Township in northern Jo Daviess County.
Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1974), 10:12; Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales, Jo Daviess County, 711:83, 85, 86, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL.
Autograph Letter Signed, 1 page(s),
Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).