Rare document signed by Lincoln three days before death up for auction

Feb. 19 (UPI) -- A rare document signed by President Abraham Lincoln at the White House three days before he was killed was found in a desk and is now up for auction.

"This is a rare opportunity to own something signed by Lincoln in his last days, and in fact on the day of his last speech to the public," says the Raab Collection, which has valued the signed Lincoln document at an estimated $45,000.

According to Raab, its research indicates Lincoln signed only two to three dozen documents in his final days before being shot at Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C., by John Wilkes Booth, a white-supremacist and actor.

Nathan Raab, the Raab Collection president, said that a woman from the Midwest who was likely in her 80s gave the auction house call and arranged to visit its Philadelphia office.

The woman, he said, told a "heartwarming story about her husband" who had passed away. Only later did she go through her late husband's desk, where the Lincoln document was stored.

"She didn't know much about it, except obviously, it had been acquired at some point by her late husband, who had kept it close to his work," Raab said.

The document reads "A.M. Gangewer is hereby appointed to discharge the duties of Third Auditor of the Treasury during the absence of the Auditor caused by sickness or otherwise," and signed by the full name "Abraham Lincoln."

Allen Gangewer -- a founder of the National Colored Home -- was a German newspaper editor from Carlisle, Pa., who was an anti-slavery advocate who worked for Lincoln's treasury secretary, Salmon Chase.

Two days before the letter was signed by the 16th U.S. president, what was known as the end of the Civil War occurred when Gen. Ulysses S. Grant received Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's surrender.