1 page + stampless address leaf. To Theodore Sedgwick, Wall Street, New York. About a legal matter, apparently involving his sister, and mentioning former Congressman Philo C. Fuller, who had been private secretary to Wadsworth's uncle, a Revolutionary War hero. Wadsworth was an attorney who never practiced law, as he had inherited one of the largest portfolios of cultivated land in New York state, and devoted his time to managing his family's estate.
Active in antebellum politics as a supporter of the Free Soil and Republican Parties, and, in 1860, a presidential elector for Abraham Lincoln, when the Civil War began, he gave up his comfortable lifestyle and, commissioned a Major General, took command of a Brigade and later a Division. He played an important role at the battle of Gettysburg, but, subsequently, in the battle of the Wilderness in the spring of 1864, Wadsoworth was shot in the back of the head, taken prisoner by Confederate troops, and then died in a Confederate field hospital. As a strange sequel, a letter, allegedly written to Wadsworth by Abraham Lincoln, was found on his dead body, in which the President seemed to declare his support for full "civil and political equality" - including postwar voting rights - for emancipated slaves. As Lincoln's position on Black suffrage had never been so forthright, historians still debate whether the letter was a Confederate forgery. This item is in the category "Collectibles\Autographs\Military". The seller is "historians-ink" and is located in this country: US. This item can be shipped to United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Denmark, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Estonia, Australia, Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, Slovenia, Japan, China, Sweden, South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Africa, Belgium, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Bahamas, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Republic of Croatia, Malaysia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Kitts-Nevis, Saint Lucia, Montserrat, Turks and Caicos Islands, Barbados, Bangladesh, Bermuda, Brunei Darussalam, Bolivia, Egypt, French Guiana, Guernsey, Gibraltar, Guadeloupe, Iceland, Jersey, Jordan, Cambodia, Cayman Islands, Liechtenstein, Sri Lanka, Luxembourg, Monaco, Macau, Martinique, Maldives, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Reunion.