Fernando Wood Telegram

Telegram from Congressman Fernando Wood proposing a meeting with President Lincoln on September 11, 1864, at the Cottage. Congressman Wood represented New York in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1841-43, 1863-65, and 1867-75. Wood also served as mayor of New York City 1855-58 and 1860-62.

Citing New York City's close ties to the cotton and enslaved economy of the South, Wood denounced abolition and anti-slavery sentiment as disruptive to New York City's economic well-being in the late 1850s.

During the Civil War, Wood became a leader of the "Copperhead" faction of the Democratic Party, which criticized President Lincoln's handling of the war, particularly his eventual ironcald insistence that emancipation be a condition of peace.