The National Archives said Monday that a Prince William County man confessed to doctoring a key Abraham Lincoln document to enhance its historical significance and pad his own career. But Thomas Lowry, 78, of Woodbridge says the only thing he’s guilty of is being hammered into a false confession.
According to Archives staff, Lowry snuck a pen into a museum research room to alter the date of an April 14, 1864, presidential pardon to 1865 — the fateful day Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre. In 1998, Lowry “discovered” the pardon, which would have been one of Lincoln’s last acts.
“This kind of put him into the Lincoln expert world, where he then published a number of books,” said Trevor Plante, acting chief of reference. “It’s very galling and upsetting to me as a trained historian.”
Plante said he noticed that the “5” was unusually dark during VIP tours of the Archives. After finding the date at odds with “The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln,” published by the Abraham Lincoln Association, Plante notified the inspector general.
Investigative Archivist Mitch Yockelson said he and another investigator went on Jan. 12 to Lowry’s home, where Lowry “indicated that he snuck a pen in, it was a Pelikan pen, and that he marked the document. He had changed the date just for the simple reason of getting some notoriety.”
Due to the statute of limitations, no criminal charges were filed.
Lowry told The Washington Examiner that he maintained his innocence to the investigators, believing that the document was altered before he ever touched it. He said he had reviewed 75,000 Civil War court marshals — many untouched. “There was no reason for suspicion, because no one had looked at these in 100 years,” he said.
Lowry said that the investigators “leaned on” him for two hours, promising that there would be no criminal charges and no publicity if he confessed. “My wife is so furious at me because she says, ‘If you had woken me up and had me come downstairs, I would have never let you make a fake confession.'”
Lowry wrote “Don’t Shoot that Boy: Abraham Lincoln and Military Justice” in 1999, and has written several more books before and since.
The cameras that monitor the research rooms had not been installed in 1998.
