geeky
On the same day Lincoln also signed an order authorizing the discharge from the army of Private Charles T. Dorset, who had been drafted into the army from the District of Columbia. The order was made at the request of Private Dorset's father. Lincoln's order reads as follows:
"Mr. Dorset, the father, says he already has two substitutes in the army, that he yet has three unmarried sons subject to draft, who will not shrink, and that he has still another son a prisoner among the rebels. He asks that this married son, now drafted, may be discharged. Let it be done."
Lincoln also annulled a sentence that was imposed against two brothers from Boston named Benjamin and Franklin Smith. The two men had been convicted of fraud. The trial was a controversial one with Senator Charles Sumner siding with the Smith brothers about the unfairness of their trial, while Navy Secretary Gideon Welles though the conviction was fair. Lincoln sided with the brothers Smith. His reasons show that Lincoln retained the mind of a good defense attorney. He wrote:
I am unwilling for the sentence to stand and be executed, to any extent in this case. In the absence of a more adequate motive than the evidence discloses, I am wholly unable to believe in the existence of criminal or fraudulent intent on the part of one of such well established good character as is the accused. If the evidence went as far toward establishing a guilty profit of one or two hundred thousand dollars, as it does of one or two hundred dollars, the case would, on the question of guilt, bear a far different aspect. That on this contract, involving from one million to twelve hundred thousand dollars, the contractors should attempt a fraud which at the most could profit them only one or two hundred, or even one thousand dollars, is to my mind beyond the power of rational belief. That they did not, in such a case, strike for greater gains proves that they did not, with guilty, or fraudulent intent, strike at all. The judgment and sentence are disapproved, and declared null, and the accused ordered to be discharged.
That day Lincoln also revoked an order made on November 18, 1862, dismissing Dr. George Burr, an army surgeon, from the army. Lincoln was convinced to issue the order upon the request of Giles W. Hotchkiss, a U.S. representative from Binghamton, New York.
It was on March 18, 1865 that Lincoln signed deeds returning California missions in San Luis Rey and San Juan Capistrano along with the surrounding lands to Joseph G. Alemany, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Monterey for the church.