150 years after Lincoln assassination, massive online archive goes live

As the 150th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln's assassination approaches, a massive digital archive is in the works that will be home to more than 100,000 documents related to the Civil War-era commander-in-chief.

The Papers of Abraham Lincoln is a project of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, and it is co-sponsored by the Center for State Policy and Leadership at the University of Illinois Springfield and the Abraham Lincoln Association. The project is dedicated to identifying, imaging, transcribing, annotating, and publishing all documents written by or to Abraham Lincoln during his lifetime. Lincoln was assassinated in Ford' Theater in Washington, D.C.  on April 14, 1865.

To date, the the project has collected 99,525 documents, of which more than 67,000 have been stored on about 40TB of storage on servers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The archive is expected to grow by another 50% over the next five years, and storage vendor Iron Mountain will eventually take over the data storage requirements when the archive is completed.

Stacy Pratt McDermott, assistant director of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln, said  the university is now allowing public access to the digitalized documents through a temporary website that offers few features. When the project is completed in two to four years, a more sophisticated site will offer academic researchers and history buffs in-depth search features.

"We have much editorial work to complete before launching our project website," she said.

The Papers consist of three types:

For example, the day before his assassination, Lincoln sent an aide to deliver a message with a simple note attached to make sure it arrived promptly: The note stated: "Let this man enter with this note. A. Lincoln April 14, 1865."

The archive also contains images of some of the most historically significant documents penned by Lincoln, such as one of the five original copies of the Gettysburg Address.

The archives also contain documents illustrating a more personal side to the Civil War-era president and his constituency -- no matter how old they were.

For example, the archive contains a Letter to 11-year old Grace Bedell on Oct. 19, 1860 who had suggested Lincoln grow a beard because his face was so thin. And there's a note to U.S. Sen. Charles Sumner (R-Mass.), who lead anti-slavery forces in that Commonwealth, that simply asks him to swing by because Mrs. Lincoln needed his help.

Documents include a hand-written pass dated April 29, 1964 for someone named Mrs. William R. Smith to cross enemy lines so she could get to New Orleans.

There's also the report of Dr. Charles A. Leale on the assassination of the President.

More recently discovered letters and documents are also being added to the digital archive as time passes. For example, as an attorney, Lincoln penned a letter in 1847 to the 11th President of the United States, James K Polk.

"President Lincoln's legacy as a statesman has marked him as one of the most important and influential leaders our country and the world have ever known," Daniel Stowell, director and editor of The Papers of Abraham Lincoln, stated in a news release.. "He was also perhaps the most well-written, and written to, presidents in history, with thousands of personal and political documents, all of which tell the story of our country during one of the most pivotal times in history."