Author Thomas Lowry alters an original Lincoln document

captainrlm

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http://cwmemory.com/2011/01/24/historian-thomas-lowry-alters-lincoln-document/

I've seen a couple of blogs post this and the story may appear elsewhere, but how awful is this?

Maybe it can be an opportunity, or reminder, about credibility of sources, but surely nobody would ever expect a supposed scholar to do something like this.

"Supposed" being the key word, I guess.

I'm still unsure of the proper words to describe this.

Wow


Edit: here's the press release from the National Archives: http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2011/nr11-57.html
 
http://cwmemory.com/2011/01/24/historian-thomas-lowry-alters-lincoln-document/

I've seen a couple of blogs post this and the story may appear elsewhere, but how awful is this?

Maybe it can be an opportunity, or reminder, about credibility of sources, but surely nobody would ever expect a supposed scholar to do something like this.

"Supposed" being the key word, I guess.

I'm still unsure of the proper words to describe this.

Wow


Edit: here's the press release from the National Archives: http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2011/nr11-57.html

I think it is DESPICABLE --what Lowry did.

Respectfully submitted,
M. E. Wolf
 
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.

That has to be one of the lamest reasons I have ever heard. I really don't know much about Mr. Lowry but this is truly pathetic.
 
Most archives I have been to do not allow ink pens into the facility. They don't pat the researcher down, however.
That is just awful.
I guess Mr. Lowrey got his 15 minutes of fame.
 
Stoopid Stoopid Stoopid

i will never understand what motivates people to do this sort of thing. It ranks right up there with carving one's intials in a canon on a battlefield, swiping artifacts, or digging holes behind the Texas Memorial at Vicksburg... all are done, all make one physically ill. At Chicamauga, they have a full display of the work of vandals around the park.. and there are a LOT of things to diaplay
 
Lowry was a psychiatrist who wrote a couple of books about sexual conduct during the Civil War. Now all his research is clouded. Wonder what this might do to his medical career?
 
prroh said:
Lowry was a psychiatrist who wrote a couple of books about sexual conduct during the Civil War.

That's where I know his name from: The Story the Soldiers Wouldn't Tell: Sex in the Civil War. Thanks for mentioning that.
 
I've got to the point, after finding an unexplainable error in one of William C. Davis' books, that I have a hard time reading books due to having to check their sources and how they used them.
 
Even an ineptly-done forgery can pass muster if you aren't expecting it.

I guess I'm a cynic. If somebody suddenly came up with a document out of the archives that bore Lincoln's signature and such a date as that one, I'd be all over it looking for fakery. And this one might as well have been written in red ink.
 
I've got to the point, after finding an unexplainable error in one of William C. Davis' books, that I have a hard time reading books due to having to check their sources and how they used them.
What was the error?

I've turned into a big footnote-checker too, actually.
 
I guess I'm a cynic. If somebody suddenly came up with a document out of the archives that bore Lincoln's signature and such a date as that one, I'd be all over it looking for fakery. And this one might as well have been written in red ink.
If Joe Blow came up with it. But this is a Published Author and everything, you know? Who expects that?
 
I read the press release from the National Archives. I don't get it. This guy is - or was - obviously well-known and respected in the historic documents area of the Archives, concerning the courts-martial of Union soldiers during the war. He paid his dues, acquired what looks to be an impressive reputation, and then he pulls this stunt. He's confessed to it, now he's saying he didn't do it. I think he's kinda finished as far as being a reputable source in that area now. He should probably start a new hobby, like stamps, coins, etc.
 
Glorybound said:
He paid his dues, acquired what looks to be an impressive reputation, and then he pulls this stunt.

When I first saw the headline I was expecting him to have altered something more important than a Presidential pardon. I don't get it.
 
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