Attractive partly-printed vellum DS as president, one page, 14.75 x 19.5, February 11, 1863. President Lincoln appoints Frank H. Hamilton as “Medical Inspector with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the service of the United States.” Neatly signed at the conclusion by Lincoln, and countersigned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, with Lorenzo Thomas signing above as adjutant general. Blue War Office seal affixed to upper left remains intact. Framed and in very good to fine condition, with light staining along the bottom edge, and light show-through along the edges from old mounting remnants on the reverse. Frank Hastings Hamilton was a pioneer in academic surgery whose career involved the development of several medical schools. In 1881, not long after the shooting of President James Garfield by assassin Charles Guiteau, Hamilton, at the request of the first lady, joined the presidential medical team led by D. Willard Bliss; the other staff physicians included Smith Townsend, J. J. Woodward, Robert Reyburn, David Hayes Agnew, and Surgeon-General J. K. Barnes, who had been at the bedside of the dying Lincoln sixteen years prior. Hamilton, considered one of the finest surgeons in the country, politely refused to comment on Bliss’ poor handling of Garfield’s injuries. A sought-after document with fascinating ties to a pair of ill-fated US presidents. Pre-certified PSA/DNA.
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