Mary was a leaker

[kerry]

Lincoln seems to have gone before a committee to testify about the leaked message, not accusations of disloyalty. I think that is where the story went awry, and it was rightly questioned, but the debunkers didn't realize the event was an inaccurate telling of Lincoln's appearance under other circumstances. The Hickman committee was supposed to be investigating censorship of the telegraph wires and that led them to investigate the leak somehow. Disloyalty does not seem to have been involved, except for the fact that it was known Watt had been accused of disloyalty but Lincoln retained him and promoted him.

This traces the rumor's history: https://books.google.com/books?id=wYmvvE...ee&f=false

All that detail was supposed to be remembered thirdhand or more, and while the author concludes it must be false due to the inaccuracies, it could have been just a garbled translation of his meeting with the House Judiciary Committee.