Lincoln Letter to Maj. General Halleck about ending the war.

Whatever the year 1862 or 1863, it is still an amazing letter. It is something that should be treasured.

According to the Washington Post story about the letter: "On July 7, 1863, three days after Vicksburg's surrender and four days after Gettysburg, Lincoln took out a sheet of blue-lined paper and wrote to his general in chief, urging that the fleeing rebels be destroyed." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/07/AR2007060701240.html

If you will zoom in on the year and especially the last digit you will see that it is indeed a "3" thus it is genuinely 1863. What I find amazing is that with digital imaging we can manipulate an image so that we can read far more than we could with microfilm. Ken

I notice that the letter is written on letterhead and Lincoln filled in only the month and day as the year was pre-written. I cannot see how the final digit in the year could possibly be a 3, but I can see it as a 2, making the year 1862. It could be that Lincoln used "old" letterhead for this note and didn't make the change in the year because it was hastily written or he didn't notice.

How can the document year of record be anything but "1863" if it is genuine?