X-ray analysis confirms forged date on Lincoln pardon of Civil War soldier

Enlarge / Abraham Lincoln's pardon for Patrick Murphy, a Civil War soldier in the Union Army who was court-martialed for desertion. (credit: National Archives)

There's rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we're once again running a special Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts, highlighting one story that fell through the cracks each day, from December 25 through January 5. Today: the results of forensic analysis of Abraham Lincoln's letter pardoning a Civil War soldier confirms the April 14, 1865 date was forged-and it can't be removed without damaging the document.

A document containing President Abraham Lincoln's signed pardon of a Civil War soldier has been the source of much controversy since its 1998 discovery, after historians concluded that the date had likely been altered to make the document more historically significant. A new analysis by scientists at the National Archives has confirmed that the date was indeed forged (although the pardon is genuine), according to a November paper published in the journal Forensic Science International: Synergy. The authors also concluded that there is no way to restore the document to its original state without causing further damage.

Thomas Lowry is a retired psychiatrist turned amateur historian, specializing in military records of the Civil War, and has authored numerous Civil War histories. Back in 1998, he and his wife Beverly were combing through a trove of rarely studied courts-martial at the National Archives, carefully indexing the documents. At the time, there were no security cameras in the room, and Archive staffers knew the Lowrys and trusted them. The couple discovered some 570 documents with Lincoln's signature.

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