Mary was a leaker

[kerry]

In late February or early March 1862 (I found it quoted in an issue of Crisis), the Herald published the following, which shows the politicized aspects of the inquiry. The Herald was sort of pro-Lincoln but would do it in an over-the-top way that caused backlash. I believe that it was the main purpose of the meeting. He "voluntarily" appeared, so he wasn't called. The committee was holding hearings on that issue, and according to later reports that misreport it as the Conduct of War Committee, was apparently stunned and embarrassed when Lincoln appeared, and let the matter drop.

I just wanted to point out that the Congressman who was the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee was John Hickman of Pennsylvania.

I am sorry, folks, but I am still confused. Here is what Daniel Mark Epstein writes in The Lincolns: Portrait of a Marriage:

"Lincoln could not risk the possibility that a subpoena might come for his wife to testify before Hickman's committee. She would balk; they would have to drag her from the house. He realized this on his birthday, February 12. The next day, on a cold morning, the president set out alone, on foot, up Pennsylvania Avenue, to the Capitol; the mud had hardened in ruts too treacherous to travel on horseback. He did not bother with Hickman's committee on the south side of the building, but strode under the dome to the left to find the room where the Senate Committee on the Conduct of the War had just convened."

So Epstein has Lincoln skipping Hickman's committee altogether and only appearing before the Committee on the Conduct of the War.

Is Epstein confused?

Contemporary reports say he went before Hickman's committee, but later reports said the War committee - maybe Lincoln went there to get them to rein in the Hickman committee, which was an offshoot. Or maybe no one remembered it was called the Hickman committee years later and got it wrong. Almost all the books from the last few decades or more say the Conduct of the War committee, so if Epstein made a mistake, he was just citing the common story.