Wilma Frances Minor letters

[maharba]

I will look at the long convoluted semi-provenance for these letters, every so often, to try and see points of reality and where it hazes off into uncharted territory. Wasn't Paul M. Angle mainly interested in debunking the notion of an Abraham Lincoln and Ann Rutledge romance? The ATLANTIC series and these letters merely fell into his lap, in that respect. By disproving them, he believed he was extinguishing the reality of the Lincoln/Rutledge romance? I think Paul Angle, only much later, acknowledged his blunder, and that William Herndon was again correct: the Ann Rutledge and Abraham Lincoln romance was indeed valid. I still tend to believe that Eliza Jane Short married first John McNeal and then John McNamar --officially so, in county records. But they were one and the SAME man. And, I wonder why none of the earlier Lincoln experts noted this? Not simply that "John McNamar initially went by John McNeil" but that he appears to have actually married Eliza Jane Short first by one name (McNeal) and then by the other (McNamar). It would be a...smoother more realistic sounding history and genealogy if I am wrong.