[little jeremiah]

I’ve never heard of or seen any official signatures on state documents using shorthand, stenography or Chinese characters. If any documents can be found from HI using anything like that then maybe your theory might be useful.

[muawiyah]

I think you are hung up on the term "state documents". I've seen MILLIONS of state documents (postal mailing statements used by major mailers) where authorizations of funds was made by a set of initials.

Of course, that was a customer authorizing USPS to use some of the money deposited early as payment for postage.

Clerks accepting the documents regularly used initials or nicknames.

Now, a formal proclamation by a Governor ~ maybe that requires something else ~ people working in the trenches filling out what amount to "source documents" don't need to do what you want unless necessary. I suspect this particular "Lee" was well known at the time and everything will make sense once someone is apply to pin an ID on the individual.