Lincoln's 'life-saving note' put up for 15000 dollars

Former American president Abraham Lincoln's scribbled note ordering a disabled 14-year-old boy to be released from the Army in response to the boy's father's plea, has been put on sale at 15000 dollars as part of a rare collection of Lincoln's children-related documents.

Lincoln's order on a telegram from Col. Thomas W. Harris about his son, Perry said 'Let this boy be discharged', Fox News reports.

According to the report, the order had been delivered only two months before John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln at Ford's Theatre on April 15, 1865, the day when Perry was released from the Kentucky regiment.

Nathan Raab of the Raab Collection who valued the note as a part of private collection, praised Lincoln by saying that he was defined by clemency and the letter involving father and son had striken a personal chord with him.

The report said that Perry had enlisted himself with the Army without the permission of his parents and registered at a false age with the regiment, a common practice in those days.

A historian who has written extensively on Lincoln and his assassination noted that compassion is a rare quality to be found in a leader, especially during a horrific war (Civil war), adding that Lincoln understood grief much better than most people as he had faced loss in his own life.

Raab said that Lincoln had great empathy and showed a lot of leniency towards the boys who had enlisted in the war.

Comparing the different times, Raab further said that Lincoln made himself available to constituents unlike today when it is hard to make a letter reach the offices of Bush or Obama.