The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.


Abraham Lincoln Says

"I have here some papers which I started in this morning to carefully examine.

They contain the entire proceedings of a military court for the trial of a young soldier for desertion. And they contain minutes of the testimony taken on the trial, together with the conviction and sentence to death of the boy, I have read just three pages of the testimony and have found this: "The boy said when first arrested that he was going home to see his mother."

I don't think that I can allow a boy to be shot who tried to ho home to see his mother. I guess I don't want to read any more of this."

-Remark to Minnesota Senator Morton Smith Wilkinson, summer 1863