On April 14, 1865, just five days after General Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox, President Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed at Ford’s Theatre in Washington. Among the items Lincoln was carrying that evening were two pairs of glasses, a pocketknife, a handkerchief, and a five dollar Confederate note like the one above. This note bears the portrait of Confederate Treasury Secretary Christopher G. Memminger and a vignette of the State of Tennessee’s capitol building in Nashville. Through the ages, it has been discussed but never fully understood where Lincoln acquired this note and why it was in his pocket that evening.
Lincoln’s Confederate Note
