National Archives Find Lincoln Note

The Associated Press reports that the National Archives stumbled upon an important historic document:

a handwritten note by Abraham Lincoln exhorting his generals to pursue Robert E. Lee's army after the battle of Gettysburg, underscoring one of the great missed opportunities for an early end to the Civil War.

The text had been public knowledge because it was addressed to a general who then telegraphed the contents to the front lines at Gettysburg. Archivist Trevor Plante had literally been looking for something else when he came across this paper stuck in a desk drawer.