Indiana couple donates documents to Abraham Lincoln library

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – An Indiana couple has donated two Civil War documents signed by Abraham Lincoln to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield.

The library said Wednesday that the documents are passes Lincoln wrote allowing a mother and two sisters to visit prisoners of war at Fort Delaware. The passes are about the size of a business card and have been in the family of Hank and Anna Dowler of Greenwood, Indiana since the end of the Civil War.

Anna Dowler says the family “felt these passes were too important to simply keep them locked up in a safe deposit box.” She says they decided “they should be given to history.”

Library officials say they will be added to the institution’s Papers of Abraham Lincoln project, which aims to publish Lincoln documents online.