At the end, did MTL have a sense of vindication

[Eva Elisabeth]

Stackpole was fired in 1865 - but when? Before or after the incident? By whom and why? I wonder if this influenced memories..

As for Lamon, Lamon's account of Lincoln's premonitious dream is questionable as well as his Gettysburg reminiscences, about which David Donald wrote:"Lamon's detailed acccount of the Gettysburg ceremonies is highly unreliable, but the quoted sentence ['Lamon, that speech won't scour!'] does sound like Lincoln." Who knows how accurate his memories were in this case?

In any case I consider both, Lamon and Herndon, capable of being great story-tellers and describing and re-telling incidents and memories (also those of third parties) purposefully in a more dramatical way than appropriate.