President Abraham Lincoln Rewards General Benjamin F. Scribner With a U.S. Treasury Post

Benjamin F. Scribner served in the Mexican War, seeing action at the Battle of Buena Vista. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War he was authorized to raise a regiment of infantry that became the 38th Indiana Regiment. Serving in The Army of the Cumberland, he led his regiment and later a brigade with distinction. A brigade commander from prior to the Battle of Stones River though the Battle of Chickamauga, he received the brevet of Brigadier General, US Volunteers on August 8, 1864 for “meritorious and distinguished service during the war”. As the war wound up, he left the service and President Lincoln appointed him collector of internal revenue for the 2nd district of Indiana; he was later treasury agent in Alaska. He wrote two works on his military experiences, the first, “Camp Life of a Volunteer”, covered his Mexican War adventures. The second, “How Soldiers Were Made”, tells of his Civil War years. General Scribner died in Louisville, Kentucky in 1900.

Document signed, as President, Washington, December 16, 1864, naming Scribner “Collector of Internal Revenue for the Second Collection District of the State of Indiana”. It is countersigned by William F. Fessenden, Secretary of the Treasury.