Wilkes, Jane J., fl. 1863 to Charles Wilkes
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC00496.265 Author/Creator: Wilkes, Jane J., fl. 1863 Place Written: s.l. Type: Letter Date: March 1, 1863 Pagination: 4 p. : Height: 20 cm, Width: 13.3 cm Order a Copy
Incomplete letter from which author has been inferred (says "Mrs. Wilkes" in the body). Mrs. Wilkes discusses her meetings with President Lincoln, Secretary of Navy Gideon Welles, Secretary of State William Seward, Senator Isaac Arnold, and General John Sedgwick in trying to get her husband's rank of commodore reinstated (it had been annulled according to this letter). Wilkes was disrated (becoming a captain on the retired list) in November 1862, on the ground that he had been too old to receive the rank of commodore under the act then governing promotions. Recipient inferred from the lines "I freely stated your case" and "my dearest husband." Probably referring to Lincoln, she says he "admired your action in the Capture of Mason and Slidell." Also quotes an endorsement of Lincoln: "I wish the Secy of the Navy to know that I am ready to do anything to set Commodore Wilkes right, which may be legally within my power, & not improper in the view of the Navy Department. And I will thank the Secy. of the Navy to indicate to me, what in his opinion, I can do, consistently with rule, above stated. Signed. A. Lincoln. March 1st 1863." This letter was penned before Wilkes's court martial in 1864 (see GLC00267.348 for a copy of the report on Wilkes's court martial).
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