National Archives July 7, 1863, three days after the Battle of Gettysburg and the fall of Vicksburg, President Abraham Lincoln penned this note to his General-in-Chief Henry Halleck expressing his belief that if Gen. George Meade could follow up his recent victory in Pennsylvania by defeating Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's army the Civil War would be over.

Well the big Civil War news this week is the discovery of the original handwritten note by Abraham Lincoln to Gen. Henry W. Halleck directly after Gettysburg urging Meade to pursue Robert E. Lee's army.  Halleck then telegraphed the note to Meade.  Historians had already known the text of the telegram for years as it is part of the official war records.

Lincoln Urgent in Lost Letter to General (Washington Post)

On July 7, 1863, three days after Vicksburg's surrender and four days after Gettysburg, Lincoln took out a sheet of blue-lined paper and wrote to his general in chief, urging that the fleeing rebels be destroyed. If they were, Lincoln wrote, "the rebellion will be over."

But the Confederates escaped over the flooded river seven days later, the war went on for almost two more blood-soaked years, and Lincoln's six-line, handwritten note of optimism vanished into the crumbling files of history.

Yesterday, the National Archives announced that the long-lost note, complete with a misspelled word and Lincoln's neat schoolboy signature, had been found last month in the downtown stacks by an archivist doing research for a Discovery Channel documentary.

…

The note, on yellowed stationery and headed "War Department Washington City" was written to Gen. Henry W. Halleck. The besieged Confederate city of Vicksburg, Miss., had fallen July 4 to the forces of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia had just been defeated at Gettysburg by union forces under Gen. George G. Meade.

,,,

 This story has gotten National news coverage as well as being picked up internationally as well.  Google News shows 289 news articles on this find.  Since it is not new news, what is the draw?  Is it just because it is the original note?  Is it because it a Lincoln letter?  Is Gettysburg part of the appeal?  If Meade had vigorously pursued Lee directly after Gettysburg, would the war possibly ended sooner?  Whatever the appeal, it makes for a good news story.