The case of Andrews is really a very bad one, as appears by the record already before me. Yet before receiving this I had orderedhis punishment commuted to imprisonmentand had so telegraphed. I did this, not on any merit in the case, but because I am trying to evade the butchering business lately.
"Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 7" by Abraham Lincoln, New Brunswick, N.J: Rutgers University Press, 1953.