When Abraham Lincoln sloppily scrawled a short, one-sentence order discharging a young soldier from the Army, he probably never suspected it would one day sell for $7,000.
And the collector who bought it in 1993 apparently never suspected it was stolen. He learned of his misfortune when Lee's Summit, Mo., police, cooperating with federal and Connecticut authorities, asked him to give it back.The 3-inch-by-2-inch note, handwritten and signed by Lincoln, was matted and framed with a sepia-toned photograph of the president.
Lincoln used a thin, brown ink on blue stationery. It resembles one of those sticky notes people leave on office phones.
It reads: "Let this boy be discharged on taking the oath refunding any bounty received. A. Lincoln, April 28, 1864." The words "taking the oath" are crossed through with a single line.
"His penmanship was as awful as mine," said Mike Black, a police spokesman.
The order belonged to a special collection of the University of Bridgeport, a small private college. Library officials noticed in January 1995 it was missing from a locked storage room.
Authorities investigating the case discovered it had been sold to a Lee's Summit man on Feb. 6, 1993, by a Beverly Hills auction house, Black said. The auction house has since closed, he said.
The Lee's Summit Police Department picked up the note after Connecticut officials asked them to recover it, Black said.
Black said the collector paid $6,800 plus about $700 in commissions for the piece. The man, a historian and collector, asked not to be identified, he said.
The resident was not a suspect, as far as local officials know. "He cooperated with us," Black said. "He wants this piece of history where it belongs."
The collector could try to get his money back by suing people associated with the auction house, Black said. The theft is under investigation by federal and Connecticut authorities, he said.
Karen Smiga, university librarian, said the collection was donated to the school in 1954 by Robert B. Davis, who was general manager and president of the Raybestos Co. in Bridgeport.
The military order concerned the release of a young man from the Army, but his identity and other circumstances are unknown, she said.
Herman Hattaway, a history professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, is a specialist in the Civil War, the South and the military. He said in those days the practice was for the Army to pay a bounty to enlisting soldiers and a refund would be expected if the soldier asked to be discharged.
Smiga said Davis was a collector who over 46 years amassed memorabilia that included 600 first editions of books about Lincoln, letters and photographs.
She discovered the theft when she went to the library's special collections room and noticed some materials had been moved around. That made her suspicious, and she began taking inventory.
The discharge order was one of the items missing from the collection, she said.
"All my indications are these are authentic materials," Smiga said. "We'll be glad to get it back."