John Wilkes Booth was engaged to marry Lucy Hale

The document is executed on two separate pages and measures 6" x 4." The letter is in Fine condition and would look great matted and framed with a period CDV or cabinet photograph of Lincoln!  Note that Abraham Lincoln was delighted when he mustered into service the first regiment for the Civil War, The New York Seventh Regiment.  How ironic it was that Abraham Lincoln's favorite play was "MacBeth."  Two years before the assassination of Abraham Lincoln John Wilkes Booth was Macbeth and his wife was Mrs. John Drew - Drew Barrymore's 2nd great grandmother.

This document has never seen the collector market as it was recently acquired as part of the estate papers of Col. Emmons Clark - I purchased letter from the collector.  

Here s a great 1883 Letter Signed by Robert Todd Lincoln to Civil War Gettysburg & New York City Draft Riots Colonel, Emmons Clark (1827-1905), declining an invitation to the Seventh Regiment s Reception and Ball. Lincoln regrets that he will not be able to attend the festivities due to his governmental obligations. The text of the document is reproduced below:

Dear Sir:

I beg to tender, through you, to the officers and members of the Seventh Regiment my thanks for their kind invitation to attend their Reception and Ball on the 11th instant.

It would give me great pleasure to be present, if it were possible for me to be absent from Washington. But I will undoubtedly be detained here by my official duties.

Very respectfully yours,

Robert T Lincoln

This seller wrote a biography The Lilfe of Times of Captain George W. Ely. A copy of the book comes with item - Emmons Clark to left appointed Ely as the youngest Captain ever of the Seventh Regiment.  Ely rushed off to A. Lincoln's aid on the outbreak of the Civil War.  Ely participated in the worst riot in US history - The New York Draft Riots."  He captured the largest slave owner in  Maryland one Mr. Bryant.   Here is how Colonel Emmons Clark described Ely the soldier, in his History of The Seventh Regiment: "Captain Ely was a thorough soldier, a strict disciplinarian, and a dashing and popular officer. He was remarkably soldierly in appearance, with great physical strength and powers of endurance. He was distinguished for his kindliness and generosity, and he was a social and genial comrade and a steadfast friend."  Photo above is Captain George W. Ely with his Company in 1863 after the New York Draft Riots - 

For more on Ely's biography go to http://ciajfk.com/georgewely.html - copy and paste. 

Things You Didn't Know About Robert Todd Lincoln. If Robert Todd Lincoln's father had entered into a duel in 1842 with James Shields outside of Alton, Illinois -he may have not been born. It was Mary Todd Lincoln's mother who instigated the duel between Abe Lincoln and Shields.

1. Three presidential assassinations occurred in the vicinity of Robert Todd Lincoln.

In April 1865 Robert Todd's parents invited him to go see Our American Cousin at Ford's Theater with them, however, he was too exhausted to attend. After John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln during the play, Robert Todd remained by his beside when he passed away the following morning.

In 1965 John Wilkes Booth was planning on making the daughter of Senator John P. Hale, Lucy Lambert Hall his wife. Three years earlier in 1862 John Wilkes Booth wrote to Lucy Hale:

"My Dear Miss Hale;

[...You resemble in a most remarkable degree a lady, very dear to me, now dead and your close resemblance to her surprised me the first time I saw you...I shall always associate you in my memory,...who was very beautiful...With a Thousand kind wishes for your future happiness I am, to you -- A Stranger"

In the Spring of 1865 Asia Booth reported that her brother John Wilkes Booth became enraged at the sight of Lucy dancing with Robert Lincoln one night at the National Hotel.

On March 4 Booth attended President Lincoln's second inauguration with a ticket of admission given to him by Lucy Hale.

On April 14, 1865, Robert Lincoln returned from Appomattox when General Robert E. Lee surrendered. Robert had been on the staff of General U.S. Grant.

After the assassination Edwin Booth wrote to his sister he had a letter from Lucy, "I have had a heart-broken letter from the poor little girl to whom he had promised so much happiness."

By 1881, Robert Lincoln had become Secretary of War under the newly inaugurated James A. Garfield. That July, he planned to travel to Elberon, New Jersey with Garfield, but before their train left the station, Charles Guiteau shot the president, who died of complications from the wound two months later.

Two decades later, in 1901, Robert Lincoln traveled to Buffalo at the invitation of President William McKinley to attend the Pan-American Exposition. He was on his way to meet McKinley when anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot the president twice at close range.

2. John Wilkes Booth's older brother Edwin Booth (also an actor) saved his life
Shortly before John Wilkes Booth's assassination of President Lincoln, in late 1864 or early 1865, Harvard student Robert Lincoln was traveling by train from New York to Washington. While at a stop at Jersey City, New Jersey, he stepped back from a crowded platform and leaned against a train car. The train began to move, and Lincoln fell into the space between the platform and train. Edwin Booth, celebrated actor and brother of eventual Abraham Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth, pulled him out of the hole, but was unaware of Lincoln's identity until he received a letter commending him for saving the President's son.

The railroad made him a millionaire. Soon after he began practicing law, Lincoln saw the potential in the emerging railroad industry. As a result, much of his non-political career was spent working as a corporate lawyer for various railroads and train-related companies. Lincoln's commitment to the Pullman Palace Car Company as their general counsel led him to assume the presidency of the company in 1897 after George Pullman's death; eventually, in 1911, he became chairman of the Pullman Company's board.

3. Robert Lincoln was involved in his mother's commitment to a mental hospital
Robert, realizing that his mother, Mary Todd, needed psychiatric help, took initiative in involuntarily committing her to a mental hospital following an 1875 hearing that declared her insane. Mrs. Lincoln, who snuck letters to her lawyer in an effort to escape, as well as newspaper editors in order to convince the public of her sanity. A year later, after a second hearing, she was declared sane and released from the Batavia, Illinois sanatorium. However, by then she had been publicly humiliated, and her relationship with Robert was permanently strained.

Robert Todd Lincoln, born on August 1, 1843, was the oldest of the Lincoln children, named after Mary Todd's father. Leaving home at sixteen to attend Phillips Exeter and Harvard University, he was criticized for not entering the Union Army at a young age as a result, Robert interrupted his studies at Harvard law school to serve briefly on General Ulysses S. Grant's staff in 1865. After his father's death, Robert resigned from the Army and moved with his mother to Chicago where he practiced law. He married Mary Harlan in 1868; they had three children, but their only son died as a teenager. He also became involved in corporate and railroad business ventures at this time, which would allow him to accrue substantial wealth. In 1875, Mary Todd's spending habits led Robert to have her confined to an insane asylum in 1875. Returning to politics, Lincoln served under Presidents James Garfield and Chester Arthur as Secretary of War (1881-85) and later as Minister to Great Britain (1889-92). His presence at the assassinations of both Garfield and President William McKinley made him self-conscious about "a certain fatality about the presidential function when I am present." He served as president of the Pullman Company and led a very quiet life prior to his death on June 26, 1926, always attempting to preserve and protect the memory of his father.