sentences:  By now a Republican, in 1860 and 1861 he sent letters to Abraham Lincoln and others in Lincoln's administration, in which he described the Kentucky political situation and the prospects for success at keeping the state in the Union.Later in the war Mitchell was part of a delegation that lobbied Secretary of State William H. Seward for the release of individuals from the Flemingsburg area who were being held prisoner for suspected Confederate sympathies, with Mitchell taking part because he was personally acquainted with Seward from their time as Whig politicians in New York.He died in Cincinnati, Ohio on September 27, 1865 and was buried at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati.