Signed in full by the President Abraham Lincoln and countersigned by Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, dated July 1, 1864. 18¼ x15 inches; blue wafer seal at left (with one small chip and minor losses), docketing notations of the Adjutant General's Office at upper left, signed by E.D Townsend. Framed.
Clayton McMichael was Civil War Union Army Officer. Commissioned as a 1st Lieutenant in the 9th United States Regular Infantry on August 5, 1861, he was promoted to Quartermaster in January, 1862, and to Captain on March 4, 1864. He resigned his commission on September 28, 1865, having be brevetted Major, from April 2, 1865 for his meritorious service at Petersburg, Virginia.
His first service was on the frontier, defending against Indians attacks. Later he served in California defending against Confederate interests in that state before being transferred to the Army of the Potomac after the Battle of Gettysburg.
He was the son of Philadelphia Mayor Morton C. McMichael, and worked on the staff his father's newspaper "The Philadelphia North American", eventually owning it after him. He served as a Commissioner from the United States to the International Exposition in Vienna, Austria in 1873, as United States Marshal for the District of Columbia from 1881 to 1884, as Philadelphia City Treasurer from 1898 to 1901, and as Philadelphia Postmaster from 1902 until a month before his death in 1906.
Provenance: A descendant of Clayton McMichael.