The National Archives announced today that it has uncovered in its stacks a hand-written note sent by Abraham Lincoln to one of his top generals four days after the battle of Gettysburg, at the height of the Civil War.

The note, dated July 7, 1863, was sent to Gen. Henry W. Halleck urging that the defeated Confederate Army commanded by Gen. Robert E. Lee be pursued in the hopes of quickly ending the war....

The contents of the note had been known to historians, archives officials said at a morning news conference. The text had been forwarded by Halleck to Meade in a telegram that was preserved in official government war records. But the hand-written note itself was discovered May 21 in the archives' downtown building by an archivist doing research for a film crew.