Commission of Mortimer Leggett to the rank of Major General signed by Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton on March 22, 1865.
An attorney and educator from Ohio, Mortimer Dormer Leggett organized the 78th Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the fall of 1861 and commanded as colonel. Leading his men in the battles of Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and Corinth, as well as during the Vicksburg Campaign, Leggett proved himself in the vital Western Theater under Ulysses S. Grant. His promotion to Major General by Brevet on September 1, 1864 came at the culmination of William T. Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign, during which Leggett participated before accompanying Sherman on the March to the Sea and the invasion of South Carolina. He resigned from the military in the fall of 1865 and returned to Ohio to practice law. President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him to the position of United States Commission of Patents in 1871.
As Commander in Chief of the United States military, Abraham Lincoln signed hundreds of military commissions during the course of the Civil War. Created in March of 1865, this certificate confirms Leggett’s promotion “for long and continuous services, and for gallantry and completeness as an officer during the Atlanta and the Savannah Campaigns.” Lincoln signed the document less than a month before his assassination.