AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED 12 MARCH 1861, TO JAMES PECKHAM OF MISSOURI, CONGRATULATING PECKHAM ON HIS FIERY DEFENSE OF THE UNION DELIVERED IN THE MISSOURI LEGISLATURE AND REPORTED IN THE MISSOURI DEMOCRAT ON 9 MARCH 1861

Shelbyville, Illinois, 1861. Single leaf, written in ink manuscript on recto only. Old folds. Water damage deletes several words, Good+.

Described as a "strident" Unionist, Peckham was a Missouri State legislator before the War. "He left the legislature and organized the 8th MO Regiment. Peckham served as the 8th MO Regiment's Lt. Col. and led the regiment at Shiloh and Pittsburg Landing, TN, and at Jackson, MS. He later went on to lead the 29th MO. After the war he published a book on the history of the war in Missouri and General Nathaniel Lyon. He passed away in 1869 and is buried at Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis, MO" [online Pamplin Historical Park & National Museum of the Civil War Soldier].
Reverend Finkbine of the Methodist Protestant Church, and President of its Illinois Conference, sends Peckham an admiring Letter, from Shelbyville, Illinois, March 12 1861: "In looking over the Missouri Democrat of March 9th I find your speech reported, in opposition to the reception of the Georgian Commissioner, to address the Legislature of your state; Permit me, Sir, to [illegible] an entire stranger to you, and in all probability shall never have the honour of an introduction to you to congratulate you on the very happy, eloquent, and withering [illegible] you gave that commissioner and all who affiliate with him, in your noble manly and dignified defense of the institutions of our common country, the will of your constituents, and the solemnity of your oath; I am happy to know we have men among us who have nerve and moral honesty enough left with them to Beard the Lyon in his den. altho i live in the state of Ill, I feel a great anxiety that the state of Missouri may be preserved in the Union, and the Republican principles which had been heretofore enjoyed by your state and had been fostered by the general Government may be continued; and the merciful interpositions of the Providence of God for good, may still favour your, and my, State, until we shall be willing to live under the folds of the Stars and Stripes in the union, and our depressed, and downtrodden brethren of Europe may still look to us as presenting them a Beacon, to come and shelter themselves in the land of the free, and the home of the Brave, allow me my dear Sir to wish you long life, and much usefulness, in your Public avocations, in defending the Principles of the Republican Party, and your constituents, which i fully believe to be the Principles of the Bible of God. Most truly and respectfully I am your [obedient servant] T. Finkbine, President of the Illinois Annual Con. Methodist Protestant Church
The above is only intended for you. personal personal.
We offer also an excerpt from the newspaper describing Peckham's speech, "denying that the Republican party wished "to carry fire and the sword into the Southern States. On the other hand, it was the object of Southern traitors to plunge the country into all the horrors of civil war. . . The Southern Democracy got restless under his speech, and the usual course of spittooning, or legislative mob law, was resorted to, but it did not have its desired effect.