Beginning Saturday, Feb. 12, the 213rd anniversary of President Abraham Lincolns birth, Heritage Auctions will offer 530 documents and artifacts associated with The Great Emancipator, among them one of the most cited and significant letters of his presidency written in the aftermath of the Battle of Fredericksburg. It has been decades since such a vaunted and valuable assemblage of Lincolnalia has been offered at auction, perhaps not since Oliver Barretts celebrated collection was sold in 1952. When my colleagues and I began discussing this auction last year, says Curtis Lindner, Heritage Auctions director of Americana, we never realized the breadth and depth of the material that would be offered. We have held Lincoln-related auctions in the past, but this is far and above the best to date, an extraordinary event filled with historic achievements, none more so than the amendment abolishing slavery. Its offerings encompass the great mans triumphs and tragedies. The two-day event, Lincoln and His Times, to be held Feb. 12 and 13, spans the course of Lincolns life and career, from his days of practicing law in Springfield, Ill., through his wartime presidency. It includes an item likely to be considered among the most extraordinary, and historically significant Lincoln artifacts ever to appear at auction, Lincolns personal example of his portrait bust by Chicago artist Leonard Volk, made before Lincolns nomination as the Republican presidential candidate and presented to the Lincolns by Volk in May 1860. Upon their departure for Washington, D.C., the following year, the Lincolns gifted the portrait bust to Rev. Noyes Miner, a Baptist minister who lived across the street from the Lincolns in Springfield and was a friend very much beloved by my husband, per a letter written by Mary Todd Lincoln in 1873. With much fanfare, in 2019 the Miner family donated the 16th presidents Bible to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. But until now this bust has remained in the familys possession. This is the first time it has appeared at auction. It has impeccable provenance, says Lindner. To eliminate the need for multiple sittings, Volk made a life mask of Lincoln, an early plaster copy of which, authenticated by the artists son, is also available in this auction. As The Metropolitan Museum of Art notes, Volks portrait bust depicts Lincoln deep in thought and finds its greatest strength in the simple naturalism representing a vigorous man. According to Volk himself, in the December 1881 issue of Century, Lincoln said that in two or three days after Mr. Volk commenced my bust, there was the animal himself! This auction counts among its offerings numerous rare and coveted items signed by Lincoln, including a carte de visite taken by Mathew B. Brady in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 8, 1864, signed by the president. There are also numerous documents penned and signed by the president, including an oft-cited 1848 letter in which he supports then Gen. Zachary Taylors candidacy for the presidency and another written two years later in which he explains a complex case to a client, reproduced in 1953s The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. One such document featured in Lincoln and His Times is the oft-collected and oft-quoted Dec. 22, 1862, letter the president wrote to the Army of the Potomac following its demoralizing defeat at the Battle of Fredericksburg nine days earlier. Under the command of Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside, and against the presidents own advice, as Doris Kearns Goodwin notes in Team of Rivals, Union forces numbering 122,000 marched across the Rappahannock to Fredericksburg. There, Confederate troops under the command of Gen. Robert E. Lee awaited on what the historian called the fortified high ground at Maryes Heights. Caught in a trap, Goodwin wrote, the Union forces suffered 13,000 casualties, more than twice the Confederate losses, and were forced into humiliating defeat. So devastated was the president by the Unions defeat at Fredericksburg, he is reported to have said, If there is a worse place than hell, I am in it. As Michael Burlingame wrote in his 1997 book The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln, a War Department secretary to whom he dictated several messages following the slaughter said later that the calamity seemed to crush Lincoln. He looked pale, wan and haggard. He did not get over it for a long time and, that winter of 1863, he was downcast and depressed. He felt that the loss was his fault. Yet he summoned strength enough to issue a public letter of commendation to the troops, in the hopes of mitigating its impact and boosting morale. That letter, later turned into a broadside for mass distribution, has not appeared at auction for decades and is a centerpiece of this extraordinary event, as it spends precious few sentences speaking volumes about the man who wrote and signed the document. I have just read your Commanding Generals preliminary report of the battle of Fredericksburg, wrote Lincoln. Although you were not successful, the attempt was not an error, nor the failure other than an accident. The courage with which you, in an open field, maintained the contest against an entrenched foe, and the consummate skill and success with which you crossed and re-crossed the river, in face of the enemy, show that you possess all the qualities of a great army, which will yet give victory to the cause of the country and of popular government. Condoling with the mourners for the dead, and sympathizing with the severely wounded, I congratulate you that the number of both is comparatively so small. I tender to you, officers and soldiers, the thanks of the nation. Of course, this auction is filled with far happier moments and memories, as well, including coveted platters and plates from the Lincoln White House, as well as two flags from his 1860 presidential campaign, among them an offering that misspells his name as Abram. But this oversized flag is a centerpiece of this auction, as it comes directly from the family of its original owner, Samuel Park, who carried it during an 1860 Ohio torchlight parade supporting Lincoln and running mate Hannibal Hamlin. That gets to the very thrill of this entire event: the ability to possess something seen only in photographs or read about in the numerous rich histories of Abraham Lincoln. This is why were so honored to present Lincoln and His Times. It brings so many historic yesterdays into the present and lets collectors share them for countless tomorrows, continued Lindner. For more information, visit www.HA.com.