AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED, FROM F.S. LYON OF DEMOPOLIS, TO GOVERNOR A.B. MOORE, 4 MARCH 1861, RECOMMENDING THE APPOINTMENT OF DR. WILLIAM C. ASHE AS SURGEON TO THE REGIMENT WITH RANK OF MAJOR

Folio sheet, folded to 7-1/2" x 9-3/4." Written in neat ink manuscript on first two pages. Third page blank, docketed on page [4]. Very Good.

Francis Strother Lyon [1800-1882], an Alabama lawyer and Democratic politician, wrote this letter to Governor Moore. Lyon had been a Whig Congressman in the 1830s and, having chaired the State Delegation to the 1860 Democratic Presidential Convention, remained a power in Alabama public affairs. Dr. William Cincinnatus Ashe [1815-1867], a Demopolis physician, received his appointment as Surgeon to the 11th Alabama Infantry on July 4, 1861, and acted in that capacity until he was relieved on June 21, 1862. On August 1, 1862 he became Surgeon-- and then Surgeon-in-Charge-- of the 1st Alabama Hospital in Richmond; and then Surgeon in Charge of Fort Morgan Hospital in Mobile Bay.
Lyon reminds Moore that "The Act of Congress for the establishment and organization of a general staff for the Army of the Confederate state, authorizes the appointment of four surgeons with the rank of Major. You will remember that the friends of Dr. William C. Ashe of this place recommended him to you for the appointment of Surgeon to the Regiment to be raised under the Ordinance of this State. Now I am not informed as to your final determination... His friends feel a good deal of anxiety for his appointment as surgeon in the regular army either by the President or yourself."
"In this part of the State we have not been clamorous for office- but we have been ardent and active in support of the cause of the South and you will concur with me in opinion that no portion of the State has been more unanimous in sustaining the measures which now promise so well to protect us against further inroads upon our rights, on the part of the North. I think therefore we are not asking too much in requesting the appointment of Dr. Ashe...