Pair Discover Untapped History Of Lincoln Scholars Hail Find As “Largest Of Its Kind Since 1947”

In the last hours of his life, just before going to Ford’s Theater on April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln reviewed the court-martial of Pvt. Patrick Murphy, who had been characterized as “idiotic and insane.” Lincoln decided that the soldier should be pardoned and released from the military.

Evidence of that compassionate act has been uncovered by Dr. Thomas Lowry and his wife, Beverly Lowry, amateur historians who found the decision among 570 documents with Lincoln’s signature and comments. Historians had doubted the existence of such a vast untapped resource of Lincoln documents, and the discovery is being praised by scholars as the largest find of its kind since 1947.

Two years ago, the two undertook a search of 80,000 rarely touched Civil War files at the National Archives. They have indexed 47,000 of them. The finding of Lincoln’s signature and comments on the 570 court-martial documents has transfixed Lincoln scholars.

“These are the largest single discovery since 1947, when the Lincoln papers were opened,” said Paul H. Verduin, general secretary of the Abraham Lincoln Institute of the Mid-Atlantic, in Silver Spring, Md., “and the largest research-based findings of the century.”

The writings and signatures vary from short sentences to long paragraphs on courts-martial, mostly discussing crimes and sentencing.

Lowry, a retired psychiatrist, compared finding Lincoln’s distinctive signature among the voluminous documents to mining for gold. “It’s all earth, and then you hit a rich vein,” he said.

Michael Musick, a Civil War military records specialist at the National Archives, said, “Anything that has substance such as these findings is of exceeding significance.”

Lowry suggested that the decisions reflected in the documents were a testament to Lincoln’s magnanimity. “Whenever there was an element of doubt,” Lowry said, “he would give the man a second chance.”

Lowry and his wife, a former hospital insurance administrator, live in Woodbridge, Va.

Lowry said Lincoln approached those cases with careful consideration, often sending for additional information before deciding, even as he was dealing with broader questions and the chaos of the war.

In one case, the documents have dispelled a legend. William Scott, often called the Sleeping Sentinel, was reprimanded for falling asleep on duty. The legend is that Lincoln went to see Scott and had him promise not to fall asleep again.

According to the documents, Lincoln never saw Scott, but pardoned him on a general’s advice.