In a Rare Presidential Letter of Consequence, Andrew Johnson Promises a Close Ally a Position on the Board of Directors of the New Union Pacific Railroad

The Union Pacific Railroad was created by the Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 and 1864. The laws were passed as war measures to forge links between California and Oregon, and the East, which otherwise took six months to reach. The main line started in Council Bluffs, Iowa and moved west to link up with the Central Pacific Railroad line, which was built eastward from Sacramento. Construction on the main line was delayed until the Civil War ended in 1865. Some 300 miles of main line track were built in 1865–66 over the flat prairies. The Rocky Mountains posed a much more dramatic challenge but the crews had learned to work at a much faster pace with 240 miles built in 1867 and 555 miles in 1868–69. The two lines were joined together in Utah on May 10, 1869, hence creating the first transcontinental railroad in North America.

George Ashmun was noted as the man who informed Abraham Lincoln that he was nominated for president by the Republican Convention in 1860. He was a congressional colleague of Lincoln in the late 1840s. He was not originally selected as a delegate to the 1860 Republican National Convention, but he replaced a delegate who could attend. On the train the Massachusetts delegation decided to push Ashmun for the permanent chairmanship of the convention. The convention over, Ashmun was the leader of the small delegation from Chicago to Springfield to inform Lincoln officially of his nomination. In the Illinois state capital, Ashmun told the party’s new presidential nominee: “I have, sir, the honor, in behalf of the gentlemen who are present – a Committee appointed by the Republican Convention recently assembled at Chicago – to discharge a most pleasant duty. We have come, sir, under a vote of instructions to that Committee, to notify you that you have been selected by the Convention of the Republicans at Chicago for President of the United States. They instruct us, sir, to notify you of that selection, and that Committee deem it not only respectful to yourself, but appropriate to the important matter which they have in hand, that they should come in person, and present to you the authentic evidence of the action of that Convention.”

The Board of Directors of the Union Pacific Railroad consisted of a general board of 20 or so members and a much smaller board representing the interests of the government. The first year, 1863, there were just 2. The second year, there were only 5 government directors. One of them was Ashmun, installed there in 1864 by Lincoln.

John Albion Andrew was elected in 1860 as the 25th Governor of Massachusetts, serving between 1861 and 1866, and led the state’s contributions to the Union cause during the Civil War. He was a guiding force behind the creation of some of the first African-American units in the United States Army, including the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. After the end of the war, and with Lincoln assassinated, he supported President Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction agenda.

Rare letter signed as President, on Executive Mansion letterhead, September 18, 1867, to John Andrew. “Dear Sir, I received this morning your letter of yesterday and beg to assure you that if Mr. Ashmun’s place should be vacant, it will afford me great pleasure to select you as his successor in the Board of Directors of the Pacific Railroad.”

Andrew died just months after this letter was written and Ashmun served until 1869.