Lincoln's Civil War order to block Confederate ports donated to Illinois by governor and first lady
Illinois' governor and first lady have donated a key Civil War document signed by Abraham Lincoln to the presidential library and museum that bears his name. Gov. J.B. Pritzker and first lady M.K. Pritzker were scheduled to visit the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum on Tuesday to announce their donation of the document in which Lincoln ordered a blockade of Southern ports along the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico in April 1861. The Union's naval power thereby put a chokehold on the Confederacy's export of cotton and import of necessary material. The document will go on display at the presidential museum from Wednesday to February 2025.