Just Months Before His Assassination, Abraham Lincoln Discharges a Boy From the Military to Return Home to His Family

Incredibly, the boy may have been the son of Norman Judd, Lincoln friend and advisor who nominated him at the 1860 Republican National Convention

In late January 1865, as the war wound down, President Lincoln felt the weight of the sacrifice that many families had made for the war.  He was especially interested in mitigating death sentences for military offenses such as desertion, and was moved by the pleas made by fathers and mothers on behalf of children under arrest and incarcerated. So he spent time reviewing the results of army courts-martial cases.

Lincoln earned a reputation as a deeply compassionate and kind man, and this reputation reached from the battlefields into American legend. This is the picture that has come down to us, and we envision him as a man who was generous of spirit, who pardoned soldiers who fell asleep on guard duty, showed leniency whenever possible, and aided widows and orphans.   Because of his position as President, he had opportunities to prove or disprove this reputation, as many requests for pardons, deferrals of executions, and pleas to aid soldiers came to him. His writings show that he seldom turned the needy aside.

Lincoln always displayed this compassion in his treatment of children, perhaps due to his having lost three of his own when they were still young.  It is uncommon for any autograph or document of Lincoln's relating to children, including that of boys in the army, to reach the marketplace, this being one of that small number.

Here, on January 20, 1865, he directs the release of “this boy” who had enlisted in the Union Army and received the standard bonus. Autograph endorsement signed, Washington. "Let this boy be discharged on refunding any bounty received. A. Lincoln." Soldiers enlisting in the army received a payment upon enrollment.  

Who was the boy? "The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln" offers strong evidence that it was the son of Norman Judd, Lincoln''s friend and advisor, and the man who nominated him at the 1860 Republican National Convention. Judd was now serving as U.S. Minister to Prussia. Judd's son Frank, a teenage boy who Lincoln helped to get an appointment to West Point (which the boy turned down, enlisting instead under an alias), was in danger of being executed for desertion. On January 19, 1865, Lincoln wrote to General Ord, “You have a man in arrest for desertion passing by the name of Stanley—William Stanley I think—but whose real name is different. He is the son of so close a friend of mine that I must not let him be executed. Please let me know what is his present and prospective condition.”  This was Frank R. Judd.  It is likely that Lincoln received his response from General Ord that very day or the next, and Lincoln's intervention saved the boy (see "Abraham Lincoln and Friends").  Judd next surfaced in Colorado working in lead mines.  

Considering the exact coincidence of dates, and the facts of the Judd case, we speculate that Judd was likely the soldier Lincoln saves here in this note. In any event, again consulting "The Collected Works", there were fewer than a dozen cases per year throughout the entire Civil War in which Lincoln is recorded as having saved a "boy", making this a great rarity.