"It is my Desire to be free": Annie Davis (to Abraham Lincoln), 1864

Lincoln was never a slaveholder, but as president during the Civil War, he held the fate and freedom of millions of Black Americans in his hands. As such, he received hundreds of letters from Black Americans, both free and enslaved, many of which are collected in a new book. When Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation, he did not free enslaved people in slave states that remained in the Union, like Maryland, where Annie Davis was held.

There is no evidence Lincoln responded. However, the state of Maryland ended slavery months later, a move the president had urged.