Clipped sheet of paper meas. approx. 4.50 x 1.25 inches. Inscribed on the paper in ink with a neat and steady hand is “MOST RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY / YOUR FRIEND AND SERVANT / THOMAS L. KANE.”

The ink is in excellent condition and not faded at all. To add elegance to his signature Kane used fine flowing sweeping lines on each of the capital letters in his name.

Thomas Leiper Kane was born January 27, 1822 in Philadelphia. After receiving an American education, he went abroad to study in Great Britain and France. Upon returning home Kane decided to study law and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 1846. He briefly clerked for his father, and then obtained a position as a Clerk of the District Court in eastern Pennsylvania. An abolitionist, Kane was distressed at the passage of the Compromise of 1850, which increased his legal responsibility to return fleeing slaves to southern territories under the Fugitive Slave Act. He almost immediately tendered his resignation to his father, who had the younger Kane jailed for contempt of court. The U.S. Supreme Court overruled this arrest.

After his release, Kane became increasingly active in the abolitionist movement. He maintained a correspondence with Horace Greeley and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and wrote newspaper articles on abolition and social issues.

Kane served as secretary at the United States legation in Paris in 1842-3. And upon his return to the US became involved with helping the Mormons in their differences with the US government.

As the Civil War began, Kane raised a mounted rifle regiment, the 42nd Pennsylvania Infantry, also referred to as the 13th Pennsylvania Reserves. He recruited woodsmen and lumbermen from western Pennsylvania, men who were experienced in the woods, could forage for themselves, and could shoot rifles. As the regiment was forming, one of his recruits ornamented his hat with a tail from a deer's carcass that he found in a butcher shop. Other men in the regiment liked this decoration and copied him, causing the regiment to be known as the "Bucktails." The men in the regiment built four large log rafts and floated down the Susquehanna River to Harrisburg, where they were mustered in. On June 21, 1861, veteran Charles J. Biddle was named Colonel with Kane as Lieutenant Colonel.

Kane was at his best as an instructor. He taught his men skirmish tactics and to be sure of their targets. He also drilled his men in long range firing developing his men into fine sharpshooters.

The Bucktails were assigned to the Pennsylvania Reserve Division of the 5^th Corps of the Army of the Potomac. When Colonel Biddle resigned to enter the United States Congress, Lieutenant Colonel Kane took command. On December 20, 1861, Kane was wounded while leading a patrol at the Battle of Dranesville. A bullet struck the right side at his face, knocking out some teeth and producing long-term difficulties with his vision.

By the spring of 1862, Kane had partially recovered from his wound and returned to the Bucktails. They served in the Shenandoah Valley, fighting against Stonewall Jackson's Valley Campaign.

At Harrisonburg, he and 104 picked riflemen were sent to the rescue of a regiment that had fallen into an ambush. He was struck by a bullet that split the bone below his right knee and his men left him on the field. When he tried to rise after the fighting was over, a Confederate soldier broke his breastbone with a blow from the butt of his rifle and Kane, unconscious, was captured. He was exchanged in August 1862 and returned to duty but was so weakened that another officer led his regiment. Kane had to be helped onto his horse and used crutches when he walked. His Harrisonburg wound would reopen repeatedly for the next two years.

Kane was promoted to Brigadier General of Volunteers on September 7, 1862, and given command of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, 12^th Corps, Army of the Potomac. This brigade was mustered out in March 1863 before Kane could lead it in combat. Kane was assigned a new brigade (now in the 2nd Division of the 12^th Corps) and saw action at Chancellorsville. After his horse stumbled in the Rapidan River and dumped him into the water on April 28, 1863, Kane developed a case of pneumonia. He was sent to a Baltimore hospital, where he remained through June. Upon hearing of General Robert E. Lee's second invasion of the North Kane volunteered to convey intelligence to the commander of the Army of the Potomac, George Gordon Meade and rose from his sickbed to join his men. On a long and difficult ride by railroad and buggy, he avoided capture by Major General J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry by disguising himself as a civilian. He arrived at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the morning of July 2, 1863.

Kane resumed command of his brigade, occupying a position on Culp's Hill. His men did not participate in the bloody fighting of July 2 because his division was pulled out of the line and sent to defend the Union left. However, when his men returned to their hastily constructed breastworks on Culp's Hill that night, they found Confederate soldiers occupying them and Kane's Corps Commander ordered an assault for early the next morning. During the action on the following morning Kane fell ill and the brigade command fell to the next ranking officer. Although his brigade was victorious, Kane was a broken man and never recovered his health. He formally relinquished command the next day and was then posted to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he supervised the draft depot. As he failed to recover his health, Kane resigned his commission in November 1863. For his service at Gettysburg, he was named Brevet Major General on March 13, 1865.

Back in Pennsylvania after the war he was the first president of the Board of State Charities, and a member of the American Philosophical, American Geographical and Pennsylvania Historical Societies. He was a Free-Mason. His later years were spent in charitable work and writing. He died of pneumonia in Philadelphia on December 26, 1883 and is buried in Kane Memorial Chapel, Kane, Pennsylvania.

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