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Civil War-dated manuscript DS as president, one page, 7.75 x 9.75, October 1, 1863. Addressed from Washington, President Lincoln appoints Maunsell B. Field “to discharge the duties of Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, during the absence of George Harrington, the Assistant Secretary.” Signed boldly at the conclusion by Abraham Lincoln. In fine condition, with wear to the left edge, light overall toning, and areas of discoloration to the upper area due to mounting remnants to the reverse of the second integral page, none of which detract from the document's crisp signature and penmanship. Accompanied by a handsome 19 x 24 lithograph of an engraved portrait of Lincoln, printed by Kimmel & Forster, entitled “Abraham Lincoln, Sixteenth President of the United States.”
This document falls within one of the most anxious stretches of Lincoln's presidency. Less than two weeks earlier, the Union Army of the Cumberland under William Rosecrans had been defeated at the Battle of Chickamauga and driven back into Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Confederate forces under Braxton Bragg occupied the surrounding high ground and threatened the city's supply lines. Lincoln was directly engaged in the crisis, having already ordered two Army corps transferred some 1,100 miles from Virginia to reinforce the beleaguered Union army; within weeks, Ulysses S. Grant would be placed in command of the newly created Military Division of the Mississippi, setting in motion the campaign that broke the Confederate hold on Chattanooga the following month. This Treasury appointment, then, was signed by the president at a moment when the Union position in the western theater remained deeply uncertain. Two days later, on October 3rd, Lincoln would issue his Thanksgiving Proclamation, calling for a national day of gratitude even as the Chattanooga crisis continued to unfold.
Maunsell Bradhurst Field had served since August 1861 as Deputy Sub-Treasurer of the United States in New York before being called to Washington in September 1863 to serve as acting Assistant Secretary of the Treasury while Harrington was in Europe for reasons of health. Harrington, who had held the assistant secretaryship since March 1861 under Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, was a central figure in financing the Union war effort, and the position carried substantial responsibility for managing wartime loans, currency issuance, and the fledgling national banking system. Field remained in the Treasury Department after Harrington's return to Washington in 1864, serving as second assistant secretary until resigning in June 1865 due to failing health. In that capacity, Field was present at Abraham Lincoln's bedside on the morning of April 15, 1865, following the president's shooting at Ford's Theatre.
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