Harriet Beecher Stowe

[RJNorton]

Legend has it that when President Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe in late 1862, he greeted her by saying, “So you’re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.” Although a meeting did take place, the greeting attributed to Lincoln is entirely apocryphal—an addition to Stowe and Lincoln lore that was not documented by either party and that did not appear in print until 1896.

There is a very well-researched article about this here.