The documents were found at the National Archives in Washington,
D.C., by David J. Gerleman, assistant editor with the Papers of
Abraham Lincoln project. Nineteenth-century pay records from the
House of Representatives are scarce, but Gerleman came across an
1848 pay voucher for Lincoln rival Stephen A. Douglas while
examining Treasury Department documents. This small discovery
sparked a targeted search of other Treasury account records to
try to pinpoint where other members' pay files might be located,
or if they even still existed. After exhausting virtually every
option, Gerleman ran across a single entry of House records in
an often-overlooked section of Treasury Department records.
Contained within several battered volumes was exactly the
information sought: Lincoln's official signed pay and mileage
accounts, complete with check numbers, date of issue, amounts
and miles traveled. One entry shows Lincoln collected a total of
$2,024 in salary for January through August of 1848 and got an
additional 1,300.8