(1801-1872) American politician and Lincoln's Secretary of State, responsible for preventing official European recognition of the Confederacy. L.S. 2pp., 4to. on Department of State mourning stationery, Washington, Sept. 29, 1865 Boston Mayor F. W. Lincoln Jr. very belatedly declining an invitation to attend the city's Independence Day celebrations: '...I have just discovered among the papers with which my desk is laden your letter of the 7th of June inviting me to be present at the celebration of the anniversary of American Independence... I beg that you will accept my thanks for your kind invitation which I should have found pleasure in accepting had circumstances been favorable to such a proceeding. Regretting the delay in making this acknowledgment, which the casualties of the season have occasioned....' Seward, of course had been the subject of an assassination attempt in April 1865 and by June was still recovering from the attack. Usual folds else fine condition.