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2 page Letter, signed, on War Department, Surgeon General's Office letterhead. Approximately 10¼x8". Original envelope present.

A letter of recommendation for the widow of J. Price Kepner, a soldier in the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry, who died in September, 1864. The letter, apparently secretarial, signed at the close by Joseph K. Barnes. On April 14, 1865, at the time of the assassination of President Lincoln and the attempted assassination of Secretary of State William H. Seward, Barnes attended the death bed of Lincoln and ministered to the successful restoration of Seward. The morning after Abraham Lincoln’s death, three Army Medical Museum pathologists entered the White House to perform an autopsy on Lincoln’s body. The autopsy was overseen by Barnes.