Mary was a leaker

[kerry]

Yup, that's one of the articles I saw too - it was widely circulated, but no one reported what he said. I don't understand why Sickles was taking care of it and being Wikoff's lawyer - it seems like he had other things to do at the time, and his presence just drew attention. The articles also report that once Lincoln spoke, Wikoff gave Watt's name, and Watt was brought in, but it isn't clear what exactly he said or what his punishment was. It doesn't appear there ever was one - the Committee was after political points by revealing Mary as the culprit. They lost interest in the outrage over the message once they were defeated. Wikoff claims he was grilled as to everything that went on in the Lincoln home (I think he dodged the questions). I've seen bribery stated as Mary's motive, but I always thought it seemed more like she was sharing it with a supposed friend (how much of the message leaked? Wikoff made it sound like a few lines). Wikoff was someone who liked to talk politics and literature so he could have made it seem like an innocent request. If it was bribery, that was obviously a big problem and one Lincoln knew about early on. If Mary wanted to make money selling White House secrets, I think we'd have a lot more newspaper reports than the ones I've found. I've been typing up the articles trying to make sense of the saga. It's also possible that Lincoln told the truth to the committee and Mary was not involved, but the Committee thought she was. I imagine he had some clever way of not lying while still "proving conclusively" no one in his household was involved. This did not involve charges of disloyalty, but there were implications that the leaker was disloyal, and the House kept trying to accuse White House servants of being disloyal. It should also be noted that Wikoff was good friends with Seward and worked for Lincoln's 1864 reelection. He definitely had a reputation, but tons of top people socialized with him because he was quite interesting. He wasn't a pariah as he is painted in the stories of this incident. Mary probably should not have trusted him, but it doesn't appear he fell out with the Lincoln administration, despite reports of him being thrown out by Lincoln himself. The whole story is crazy.