Lincoln artifacts at new America 250 exhibit at Reagan Library

[Gene C]

My Russian informants tell me these were secret love letters to and from Ann Rutledge uncovered by Wilma Frances Flinstone and sold to the Atlantic Monthly.
Intended to create a a scandal for the Lincoln administration, they were not published due to the assassination. Hidden away and forgotten for several years, in a hermetically sealed mayonnaise jar they were rediscoverd by Wilma who passed them on to Atlantic Monthly with much fanfare.


It was later discovered that due to the passage of time and faded print, some of these letters were really prototypes of direct mail advertising by AARP. However, the original goal to keep the Rutledge/Lincoln letters private was somewhat successful when William Seward paid the Russian government a cleverly disguised ransom of a whopping $0.02 fer acre for the useless Alaskan territory.