Hello,
I've been doing a lot of Mary Lincoln research the last few years, and the one thing I always come back to is the Henry Wikoff incident, because it is so completely misunderstood, and illustrates a lot of the distortions that have made it hard to understand her life. I also find the press warfare of the era fascinating, and Herald editor James Gordon Bennett is one of the most interesting Americans of all time, IMO. Wikoff himself was quite fascinating. I'm still working on fully breaking the events down, but this blog piece is a good start for anyone who is interested: https://kerryellard.wordpress.com/2019/08/31/mistaken-identities-part-i/
The incident was the alleged leak of Lincoln's first annual message to Congress to the Herald. It was more like a summary of a few talking points, totally non-sensitive, that was published literally a couple of hours before the official release of the whole message to the press. Stuff like this happened all the time, and people were waaaay more focused on the much more extensive leak of Simon Cameron's message advising arming black soldiers, which led to a showdown between him and Lincoln, who eventually forced Cameron to omit that portion. Abolitionist-leaning congressmen were furious, and the Herald, more conservative, taunted them. When Lincoln realized what Cameron's message said, he unexpectedly held back all cabinet member's messages, so congress opened and nothing was delivered until the next day. Literally no one mentioned the summary until more than two months later, when the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, then really at odds with the Lincoln administration on a number of things, started investigating telegraph censorship.
It was then alleged, in a way that doesn't quite add up, that Wikoff had procured the information from Mary Lincoln. It was made by Tribune employees who were in an intense rivalry with the Herald and thought it was being favored in having fewer telegraphs censored by the war department. I still can't quite figure out what actually happened, but the way it has been portrayed as a scandalous leak is totally inaccurate. The committee's purpose was to make sure that the government was allowing everyone's leaks to go uncensored--it was not at all a security issue. It was just a fishing expedition used to humiliate Lincoln, as they were using every tactic they could. This was a very minor event given all that was going on. It in no way damaged the Lincolns' relationship with the Herald, as has been alleged, though it did somewhat with Wikoff, who was being used as an example of a social undesirable by republicans who didn't want to attack Lincoln indirectly. Instead, they attacked Mary Lincoln's social taste. Interestingly, many of them, who were not based in D.C., grouped together Wikoff, Sickles, and Ward "Hill" Lamon as the same type of undesirable, who would only be invited by Mary Lincoln. Lamon was super friendly with Lincoln and had been for decades, but super unpopular in DC, especially with abolitionists, since he was born in Virginia and pretty pro-slavery, but largely also because he was bold and shameless, which is what bothered people so much about Wikoff and Sickles and the Herald. In no way was his presence related to Mary Lincoln, but that allegation repeatedly resurfaced, including by Rose Greenhow. And he had nothing to do with someone like Wikoff.
The twists and turns of the story are crazy, as is how confused the story has become--and it still surfaces regularly. There is a particularly absurd narrative held to by Lincoln historians in which Wikoff was a spy for the Herald. There is no way that the Lincolns did not know who Wikoff was, or about his Herald connection. Lincoln had been approached by Wikoff months before and badgered for a pass for a Herald reporter. He was unable to get one, and wrote a pretty groveling letter to Bennett apologizing.
I've been doing a lot of Mary Lincoln research the last few years, and the one thing I always come back to is the Henry Wikoff incident, because it is so completely misunderstood, and illustrates a lot of the distortions that have made it hard to understand her life. I also find the press warfare of the era fascinating, and Herald editor James Gordon Bennett is one of the most interesting Americans of all time, IMO. Wikoff himself was quite fascinating. I'm still working on fully breaking the events down, but this blog piece is a good start for anyone who is interested: https://kerryellard.wordpress.com/2019/08/31/mistaken-identities-part-i/
The incident was the alleged leak of Lincoln's first annual message to Congress to the Herald. It was more like a summary of a few talking points, totally non-sensitive, that was published literally a couple of hours before the official release of the whole message to the press. Stuff like this happened all the time, and people were waaaay more focused on the much more extensive leak of Simon Cameron's message advising arming black soldiers, which led to a showdown between him and Lincoln, who eventually forced Cameron to omit that portion. Abolitionist-leaning congressmen were furious, and the Herald, more conservative, taunted them. When Lincoln realized what Cameron's message said, he unexpectedly held back all cabinet member's messages, so congress opened and nothing was delivered until the next day. Literally no one mentioned the summary until more than two months later, when the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, then really at odds with the Lincoln administration on a number of things, started investigating telegraph censorship.
It was then alleged, in a way that doesn't quite add up, that Wikoff had procured the information from Mary Lincoln. It was made by Tribune employees who were in an intense rivalry with the Herald and thought it was being favored in having fewer telegraphs censored by the war department. I still can't quite figure out what actually happened, but the way it has been portrayed as a scandalous leak is totally inaccurate. The committee's purpose was to make sure that the government was allowing everyone's leaks to go uncensored--it was not at all a security issue. It was just a fishing expedition used to humiliate Lincoln, as they were using every tactic they could. This was a very minor event given all that was going on. It in no way damaged the Lincolns' relationship with the Herald, as has been alleged, though it did somewhat with Wikoff, who was being used as an example of a social undesirable by republicans who didn't want to attack Lincoln indirectly. Instead, they attacked Mary Lincoln's social taste. Interestingly, many of them, who were not based in D.C., grouped together Wikoff, Sickles, and Ward "Hill" Lamon as the same type of undesirable, who would only be invited by Mary Lincoln. Lamon was super friendly with Lincoln and had been for decades, but super unpopular in DC, especially with abolitionists, since he was born in Virginia and pretty pro-slavery, but largely also because he was bold and shameless, which is what bothered people so much about Wikoff and Sickles and the Herald. In no way was his presence related to Mary Lincoln, but that allegation repeatedly resurfaced, including by Rose Greenhow. And he had nothing to do with someone like Wikoff.
The twists and turns of the story are crazy, as is how confused the story has become--and it still surfaces regularly. There is a particularly absurd narrative held to by Lincoln historians in which Wikoff was a spy for the Herald. There is no way that the Lincolns did not know who Wikoff was, or about his Herald connection. Lincoln had been approached by Wikoff months before and badgered for a pass for a Herald reporter. He was unable to get one, and wrote a pretty groveling letter to Bennett apologizing.