National Archives Discovers Date Change on Lincoln Record

Washington, DC…Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero announced today that Thomas Lowry, a long-time Lincoln researcher from Woodbridge, VA, confessed on January 12, 2011, to altering an Abraham Lincoln Presidential pardon that is part of the permanent records of the U.S. National Archives. The pardon was for Patrick Murphy, a Civil War soldier in the Union Army who was court-martialed for desertion.

Lowry admitted to changing the date of Murphy’s pardon, written in Lincoln’s hand, from April 14, 1864, to April 14, 1865, the day John Wilkes Booth assassinated Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC. Having changed the year from 1864 to 1865, Lowry was then able to claim that this pardon was of significant historical relevance because it could be considered one of, if not the final official act by President Lincoln before his assassination...

http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2011/nr11-57.html

Ouch.

Lowry is now claiming he didn't do it and the confession was coerced.

I read what he said about the way the government approached him on this, and how the confession was extracted. Sounds like the way the government works. I'm almost inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.