October 17, 2012 THE VILLADOM TIMES lier shared considerable praise with the junior man placed on administrative leave when they recovered stolen documents in a case that had nothing to do with Lowry. Now they would seem to be feuding. I trust Lowry because he is a friend of mine, and provided one of the three handwriting analyses in my book, “Custer Survivor.” Lowry independently came to the same conclusion as former Wyckoff Police Chief John Ydo and former Ridgewood Chief of Detectives Keith Killion: The handwriting of a 27-year-old soldier who enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1872 was extremely similar to the handwriting of a 66-year-old farmer who claimed to have ridden away from Custer’s Last Stand and had two gunshot wounds to prove it. Height, hair color, eye color, and bilingual abilities in English and German strongly suggested Frank Finckle was a Custer survivor. Screams of outrage burst forth from people who had studied Custer’s Last Stand for decades and never bothered to check the handwriting samples from 1872 and 1921. The fact that I understood research and they did not made me the villain of the hour. People attached one-star reviews to the website to drag down the excellent professional reviews. One cited Lowry as a reason to dismiss the handwriting analysis. One man who works sporadically for the National Park service claimed to have spoken with a relative of the “real” Sergeant Finckle from Germany who was indignant about the whole thing and said his dead ancestor was a hero who died killing Indians for America. I asked for the indignant German’s address or telephone number. He lost them. I asked for his first name. He forgot it. As it happens, the German Wikipedia site, which I discovered after the book was in print, tells the same story my book does: Finckle was born in Ohio of German ancestry and was not a “German.” The same guy got back through a surrogate a year later and claimed he had a photograph of the “real” Sergeant Finckle, who was not the same person as the farmer in my book. What happened to Lowry was far worse. With his name on a confession, he was treated to the sort of scorn usually reserved for war criminals. He submitted to a polygraph IV • Page 15 The sun never sets on our national fascination with Abraham Lincoln, which has taken some sharp turns, but none wilder than what just appeared in The New York Times. Last year, two federal officials accused Dr. Thomas Lowry, author of many Civil War books, of forging the date on a Lincoln pardon to make it look as if the pardon were the last official document Lincoln ever signed before his assassination at Ford’s Theatre. Lincoln had spared Private Patrick Murphy from the firing squad after Murphy’s court-martial for desertion, but Lincoln did this in April of 1864 -- a full year before his own murder. Dr. Lowry featured this later-war pardon in his book, “Don’t Shoot That Boy!” Years later, someone noticed that when the date on the pardon was magnified, an obvious but simple forgery was apparent. The date had been charged from 1864 to 1865. The National Archives defense team subsequently produced a signed confession. Dr. Lowry -- a retired MD and former U.S. Air Force psychiatrist whose father and son both served as U.S. officers -- claimed almost immediately that the confession, which he admitted signing, was produced by mental and emotional coercion. Dr. Lowry said he was told that everybody knew he did it, but if he admitted doing it, there would be no repercussions whatsoever. Dr. Lowry’s wife, Bev, whom he adores and depends on for research, was experiencing medical problems under the same roof as the interrogation. In order to get the government men out of the house, Lowry says, he signed the confession that he had forged the date, adding perhaps dryly that he had done it with a special brown pen. Pens are not allowed in the National Archives, where all notes must be taken in pencil. Lowry obviously knew that. The National Archives then went public with the fact that they had finally caught the now-notorious Lincoln pardon forger. Lowry was banned from the National Archives for life -- a great way to prevent research that might disrupt people’s delusions of the Lost Cause and the Halcyon Heroes of the North and the South. The Lowrys had moved from the San Francisco Bay area a decade before at considerable expense and inconvenience so they could spend the remainder of their lives researching the Civil War and writing books about America’s bloodiest conflict. The ban from the National Archives hit them hard, but what hit them harder was that so many minorleague Civil War bloggers attacked Lowry as if he had just been caught selling information to the Taliban. Last week, The New York Times reported that the second of the two federal officials most responsible for producing the Lowry “confession” had been placed on administrative leave with pay after multiple allegations of misconduct and an investigation. The first man on leave charged his supervisor, who reportedly masterminded the effort to find the forger, with altered audits, providing law enforcement information to news personnel without the approval of the law enforcement agencies, and making vulgar comments. The top guy to be placed on administrative leave had ear- Character assassination in the National Archives test, which confirmed he had not forged the signature. Nobody listened. They should listen now. I will not judge any man before the court does, but it sounds like the two people behind Lowry’s self-imposed conviction needed a culprit and pursued a conviction without regard to actual guilt or innocence. Sometimes, doing injustice becomes the primary goal. In Norfolk, a police detective already notorious for bullying suspects coerced four sailors into confessing to the murder of a sailor’s wife. The detective promised to spare them the death penalty if they admitted to the crime, which they did not commit. The detective knew this because, among other things, their DNA was all wrong, though he never told them. Some retired FBI agents and lawyers took an interest after the guilty party wrote in from prison and confessed, and his DNA and description matched. The four bullied sailors are now trying to put their lives back together, and the crooked detective is facing time in prison. Such is the state of justice in some parts of America. Why would any man turn on Lowry when his whole life has revolved around patriotism, scholarship, and generosity with his time and advice? Envy -- sheer envy by those who cannot get published. I took a few slap shots myself when I urged that Lowry’s self-defense be taken seriously, especially after the polygraph test came down on his side. One hero of research banned me from his blog. I cannot say what terror coursed through my veins when I heard this, but it was only a momentary Elba, not the final arsenic. I’m still out there taking my five-star reviews from honest people who know the subject and one-star reviews from people who wish they were General Custer but lack his charisma and courage. I cannot say that Lowry was not guilty of the Lincoln forgery. I can only say that the weight of evidence increasingly makes it look as if he were framed. If he is proven innocent, the National Archives should give the Lowrys a couple of comfy chairs with good natural light and let them get back to work. The people who framed them, if such people are shown to exist, should also be given some federal accommodations. Maybe they can work in the library. Letters to the Editor Dear Editor: This past weekend I had the privilege of meeting John Roth at a neighborhood Meet & Greet gathering. It was a lovely informal discussion with neighbors in attendance and I found him to be educational, intelligent, and honest. John Roth was authentic, sincere, and knowledgeable. He answered questions directly and clearly. He was impressive in his desire to make Mahwah a safe, attractive, comfortable place to live. He was concerned about excessive Voting for John Roth spending and political ulterior motives. He understood, and was able to explain, the business and financial side of running a town, which is so important today. John Roth is considerate of our residential and commercial pocketbooks, and I believe he will make every effort to protect them while providing the best possible community services. John Roth gets my vote. I hope he will also get yours! Anne Lawler Mahwah Able outdoorsmen Den 4 Boy Scout Leader Ken Gubala helps the members of Webelos 1 Den of Ramsey earn their outdoorsman badges while counting the rings of this very old tree stump.