Abraham Lincoln to Simeon Francis, 9 June 1848
General TAYLOR has received the nomination of the Convention for President of the U.[United] States.
A. Lincoln.1
1Abraham Lincoln telegraphed Simeon Francis from the Whig National Convention, which had nominated Zachary Taylor as the Whig Party’s candidate in the 1848 presidential election. This is the first known instance of Lincoln employing the telegraph.
Marilyn Mueller, “Tapping into the New Technology: Lincoln’s Earliest Telegraphic Message,” Lincoln Editor 10 (January - March 2010): 7-8; Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008), 1:277; The Lincoln Log: A Daily Chronology of the Life of Abraham Lincoln, 9 June 1848, http://www.thelincolnlog.org/Results.aspx?type=CalendarDay&day=1848-06-09.

Printed Transcription, 1 page(s), Illinois Daily Journal (Springfield), 15 June 1848, 2:4.