Frederick Remann to Abraham Lincoln, 29 May 18491
Vandalia Ill May 29th 1849Dear SirSome time since friend Kennaday received a letter from you on the subject of the Registers office in which you are Kind enough to say that the strongest recommendaton from this Land District, would secure in your opinion the Receivers appointment.2 In accordance with this friendly hint, I have made it my business to get an exppression of this District at large– In Fayette I have more recommendations than the Department will trouble themselves with reading– In Bond, such men as Plant, Smith, Dr Drake, Holcomb & dozens of others. In Shelby the Thorntons, May,3 Tacket, Gordon, Ward &c[etc] &c. In Effingham 100 Germans besides the leading Whigs. In Coles, Cunningham, Henson, Nabb, Apperson, Linder, (our district Elector on Taylors Ticket)In Macon, Pugh, Powers, Smith, and othersCumberland Marion Clinton, Montgomery, and Clay, the prominent men have signed my recommendationthese are all the counties in this land district . . .
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Besides– many of our old friends through out the state have written for me to the Department, I am4 still strengthening my recommendations by continued Names. I do not Know what the
intention of the Department is about these offices in Vandalia— if they intend to
remove I would like to have my case considered– And if you think from the representation
I have made to you that I am the most numerously recommended I would like consider myself under Many obligations to you if you would mention by letter that
fact to the Department. Be pleased to answer. And considr me ever sir and in duty bound,
Your trulyF. Remann5Hon A. Lincoln5Lincoln’s response, if he penned one, has not been located.
Remann was vying against James T. B. Stapp for the office of receiver at the U.S. General Land Office in Vandalia. Lincoln received several letters endorsing Remann. Kennaday was seeking
to hurt Stapp’s candidacy by charging that Stapp was not a Whig. Stapp would receive
the appointment and hold the position until at least 1851.
Alexander P. H. Doyle to Abraham Lincoln; Joseph T. Eccles to Abraham Lincoln; James Kennaday to Abraham Lincoln; George W. Powers and Others to Abraham Lincoln and Edward D. Baker; Edward O. Smith to Abraham Lincoln; Register of all Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of
the United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1849 (Washington, DC: Gideon, 1849), 137; Register of all Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of
the United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1851 (Washington, DC: Gideon, 1851), 141; Illinois Journal (Springfield), 11 July 1849, 1:6; Illinois Daily Journal (Springfield), 4 September 1850, 2:4.
Autograph Letter Signed, 2 page(s),
Abraham Lincoln Papers, Library of Congress (Washington, DC).