Mary was a leaker

[RJNorton]

Dr. Mark E. Neely, Jr. is a non-believer. He authored an article in the January 1975 Lincoln Lore entitled "Abraham Lincoln did NOT Defend His Wife Before the Committee on the Conduct of the War."

Dr. Neely concluded his article by writing:

"The myth of Lincoln's defense of his wife before Ben Wade's Committee is based on flimsy evidence and a great deal of desire — desire to make the abolitionists look bad, desire to make Mrs. Lincoln's critics seem at once unreasonable and influential, and desire to prescribe a standard of political behavior for today's Presidents. Whatever the merit of these desires, no cause is well served by making precedents from shoddy anecdotes. We have been watching the birth of a myth; let us hope soon to see its quiet demise."

https://archive.org/stream/abrahamlincol...c_djvu.txt