Samuel Noah to Richard Yates

Mt. Pulaski Logan Co. Ill. Apl. 4th, 1861.

His Excellency Governor Richard Yates

Dear Sir,

There is nothing to justify this intrusion save your very gentlemanly attention and courtesy toward me during your term of service as Representative in Congress; and notwithstanding your well merited elevation which exalts you so far above me, I am yet impressed with the conviction that I may safely calculate on your generous sympathy in my behalf. To be brief then, I have relinquished my claim for extra services at Brooklyn Heights New York, and in place of which I have petitioned Congress for a pension for services rendered at Brooklyn and Harlem Heights New York during the war of 1812, which petition has been laid before the U. S. Senate and referred to the Committee on Pensions. A friend of mine with whom you may probably be acquainted, Col. Isaac R. Braucher wrote to Hon. Lyman Trumbull requesting him to exert himself for me, but as yet has not heard from him in reply. Here Sir, the force of circumstances irresistibly impels me to solicit your aid to carry my affair successfully through. May I then presume to request a kind word from you in my favor to W. Trumbell and other gentlemen of your acquaintance to use his or their influence to further my business in Congress? Your powerful agency assuredly would prove a host to effect it; and such an agency would undoubtedly ensure success and lay me under infinite obligations. The papers both printed and written, from the Military Academy West Point New York, stating the date of my graduating there in 1807, as also my

several promotions in 1807, 1808, 1810 and my resignation in 1811; as well as my services at Brooklyn and Harlem Heights N. Y. all accompany my petition as irrefragable proof of the correctness of my claim. Now prudence admonishes me to call a halt lest I prove irksome and regale myself with the pleasing anticipation in full bloom that I shall be honored with an early response which will henceforward put it in my power to subscribe myself with the most exalted consideration.

Your Excellency's

Most Obdt. Hble Sert.

Sam Noah

Samuel Noah.

Mt. Pulaski

In regard to Pension.