With support from the University of Richmond

History News Network

History News Network puts current events into historical perspective. Subscribe to our newsletter for new perspectives on the ways history continues to resonate in the present. Explore our archive of thousands of original op-eds and curated stories from around the web. Join us to learn more about the past, now.

Lincoln's letter sets record at auction

Abraham Lincoln's heartfelt letter to youngsters who asked him to free America's "little slave children" was sold at auction Thursday for $3.4 million.

The 1864 letter set a record for a Lincoln manuscript, as well as for any presidential and American manuscript, Sotheby's said.

It was purchased by an anonymous American private collector bidding by telephone.

Lincoln's hand-penned reply was contained in a letter to a woman who had mailed the children's petition from Concord, Mass.
Read entire article at AP