Military personnel were present during Lincoln's autopsy, when locks of the president's hair were dispersed among many.

Edward Curtis, a surgeon assisting at the autopsy, wrote: "seated around the room were several general officers and some civilians, silent or conversing in whispers." Other Lincoln assassination relics associated with the Quarter Masters Department include Lincoln's alleged deathbed sheet, originally collected by Thomas Thompson, general superintendent of the Quarter Master Department, who claimed that "all the surplus articles after the funeral were turned over to me."

The undershirt sleeve does not appear to be bloody. Brearley's l890 letter to Charles Gunther describing how he obtained the relic varies from his wife's account:

The right sleeve of Lincoln's undershirt which he wore the night he was shot, and which was removed from the shirt when it was cut from his person, to examine his body to see if there were any additional wounds on his body.

Authentication of Brearley's other Lincoln assassination relics would bolster the case for the legitimacy of the hair in the Army Depot envelope.

Padded hood attributed to Lewis Powell (alias Paine) while incarcerated in the Old Capital Prison, Washington, D.C., 1865 (CHS 1920.1271); flag allegedly placed on Lincoln's temporary coffin, 1865 (CHS 1920.1689).

A further investigation of Brearley's flag, the Lincoln autograph card, and Lewis Powell's alleged hood is pending. A May 1865 letter to Wm. Brearley marked "strictly confidential" is apparently in reference to obtaining hoods for Lincoln's assassins. The letter orders Brearley to report to Major General John Frederick Hartranft, provost marshall at the trial of Lincoln's assassins, with a letter from Major General Winfield Scott Hancock, who was in charge of the conspirator's hanging, to obtain Hartranft's "directions as to what work is to be done and have them carried out with secrecy and dispatch." (THOMAS)

Detail of undershirt sleeve attributed to Abraham Lincoln.