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Ellie Marks had asked the question so many times that the words had worn smooth, like stones in a river.
“When does Lincoln get exonerated?”
She first asked it at age twelve, standing in the rain outside the Illinois State Capitol, holding a sign that said HISTORY IS A LIE . Her father had been a history teacher before he lost his job—before he lost his mind, some people said. But Ellie knew the truth. Or she thought she did.
“They brought the prisoner in last night. A tall man, rough clothes, calling himself ‘A. Lincoln.’ The guards laughed, but the man had the same deep eyes as the president’s portraits. He keeps insisting he is the real one, that the man in the White House is a fraud. They say he’s mad. But I watched him split rails this morning—for the exercise, he said. And he did it better than any farmer I’ve ever seen.”
She wanted to scream. The court of public opinion! The court of history!
The letters went on. According to Silas, the man claiming to be the real Lincoln was held for three months, then quietly moved to a military hospital in Maryland, where he died of “consumption” in the spring of 1862. His grave was unmarked.