You have a soon to be released book and are wondering how to give it a nice boost in the media. Thus, one Thomas Lowry, author of Don’t Shoot That Boy: Abraham Lincoln and Military Justice (published in 1999) took a fountain pen into the National Archives with him (needless to say, pens are forbidden in the research areas) and…hold for it… changed the date (from April 14, 1864 to April 14, 1865) on an actual, honest to goodness pardon written by Abraham Lincoln himself.

All this was done so he could claim in his book to have “discovered” that Honest Abe, in one of his last official acts as president (he was assassinated the night of April 14, 1865), showed mercy by pardoning a Union Army deserter from execution. How nice.

Besides the fact that his disgusting act was Stalinist in its blatent attempt to change the historical record to fiction, Mr. Lowry’s altering of the letter showed all the cunning and ability of a sixth grader forging a note from his mother. “National Archives archivist Trevor Plante reported to the National Archives Office of Inspector General that he believed the date on the Murphy pardon had been altered: the “5” looked like a darker shade of ink than the rest of the date and it appeared that there might have been another number under the “5”.”

Unfortunately, the statute of limitations has passed for Mr. Lowry to be prosecuted for a truly heinous act, but at least the National Archives banned him for life from all its facilities. Judging by Mr. Lowry’s character and disdain for the truth, his books should be banished from polite society as well.

Discovered via Thomas DiLorenzo’s blog post here on LewRockwell.com