War Department employee August Clark's letter to Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew offering a relic from the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, 14-15 April 1865. Clark enclosed with the letter a piece of woven white linen towel stained with Lincoln's blood (now faded). Many of those gathered around Lincoln at the time of his death collected pieces of cloth, hair, and other artifacts. People collected these items from Lincoln's deathbed in part as a recognition of his accomplishments as a politician and as the president, and in part because of the awareness of this historical nature of the incident.