Mary was a leaker

[David Lockmiller]

(10-12-2017 04:12 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  David, you wrote an excellent summary of a story that has proved to be apocryphal. Kudos!

Regarding her loyalty, Mary Lincoln withstood a lot of strange rumors - I once read that at least one newspaper wrote that Confederate agents came by ladder to her bedroom window at night where she passed military secrets to them!

Roger, I thought that the most fascinating part of Professor Prokopowicz's work were the references that he made to the the misuse of fictitious Lincoln quotes as a justifiable means to an allegedly "legitimate" end by two members of Congress on separate occasions.

1. During the Watergate hearings, Senator Lowell Weicker read Sandburg’s account aloud in an effort to persuade Richard Nixon to appear before Congress voluntarily and explain himself.
2. In December 2003, a magazine columnist who thought anti-war members of Congress should be “exiled, arrested, or hanged” attributed those words (wrongly) to Abraham Lincoln. . . . It burst into the view of the mainstream when a Representative from Alaska read it on the floor of Congress.
   

I might also add as a cause for concern the following statement made by Professor Prokopowicz:

"[T]he Internet has made it possible for conscientious writers to check the validity of Lincoln stories like this one before incorporating them into speeches, books, or other publications. It has also made it possible for [] malicious writers to create and spread new Lincoln legends much faster than ever before."

Roger, this makes your good work much more difficult.