Handwritten Lincoln Manuscript Sale Sets Record

A handwritten manuscript of an 1864 Abraham Lincoln speech has sold for $3.44 million in New York City, setting a new auction record for any American historical document.
    
The sale at famed auction house Christie's on Thursday was just slightly higher than the previous record of $3.40 million set last year, also for a 1864 Lincoln document.
    
The speech was delivered at the White House after Lincoln was re-elected, and is considered one of his most important.  It was delivered as the nation was bitterly divided by Civil War.
    
The manuscript was sold to an anonymous phone bidder, on the bicentennial of Lincoln's birth.
    
Proceeds from the sale will go toward a new wing for the Southworth Library Association in Dryden, N.Y., in the Finger Lakes region. The document was given to the library in 1926.