The Lincoln Pass
When William Alvin Lloyd arrived in Washington, DC, to claim he had been President Lincoln’s spy throughout the Civil War, among the papers he presented to General Grant’s War Department office was a pass to cross the lines. To an untrained eye, the pass looked as if Lincoln wrote it.
But did he?
Though there are specific handwriting flourishes that when compared to authentic examples of Lincoln’s signature appear to be the same, the very nature of the Lloyd fraud made us suspicious. Was the pass a forgery, part of the welter of documents Lloyd and his accomplices presented after Lincoln’s assassination? T.H.S. Boyd was certainly a forger, a convicted one at that. So was the pass his handiwork? While we possessed a microfilm image of the pass, we were not at all satisfied with its clarity and consulted with experts in the field.
Curiously, during the times Lloyd’s belongings were searched throughout the war, there is never a mention of the pass being discovered. So was the item forged after Lloyd and his accomplices learned of Lincoln’s assassination?
Jane Fitzgerald, NARA Archivist, Archives 1 Reference Section Research Services, Washington, DC, examined the Lloyd Pass and communicated the following to author Jane Singer:
Dear Ms. Singer: I have just viewed the pass and envelope (front and back of both) in the vault. The envelope is an actual envelope—not a copy. On the front of the envelope appear the following handwritten sentences/notations: The words “Headquarters Armies of the United States, Official Business,” are pre-printed on the upper right hand corner. On the front of the envelope appear the following handwritten sentences/notations: 1) Pass signed by Prst.(?) Lincoln. Appears to be written in black ink. 2) 20 640. L (a.g.o) 1865. Written in red ink. 3) Certified copy of written “Pass” furnished Secy. of War (for Ct. of Claims) with return of 1859. ago.1872. May 6 ’ 7? (cannot make out number after 7). [This is the date a copy of the pass was sent to the Court of Claims.] The letters, E.B. 10. All written in red ink. On back of envelope, handwritten in red ink, is possibly (very hard to read): In C. 38 E.B. H.? The envelope measures 5 7/16” across and 3 1/16” up & down. The pass does not appear to be a copy. It measures 3 1/4” across and 1 3/4” up & down. It is a bit lighter in weight than cardboard—very similar to the weight of a present day business card. Pass has brownish tint—may be due to grime or aging. On the back of the pass appears the following: 1) 20 640. L. a.g.o. 1865; Handwritten in red. 2) round black ink stamp (very faded)—can only read a portion and I believe it is “Dept. City Point, Va.” 3) black ink stamp that reads “The National Archives of the United States.”
The high-resolution digital scans of the Lincoln pass have been viewed by Lincoln experts Dr. James M. Cornelius, curator, Lincoln Collection, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library & Museum (Springfield, Illinois); Dr. Daniel Stowell, director and editor of the papers of Abraham Lincoln (Springfield, Illinois); handwriting analysts Kirsten Singer and Ellen Schuetzner; Edward N. Bomsey; and Lincoln autograph expert Daniel Weinburg, proprietor of the Abraham Lincoln Bookshop in Chicago. All have seen the scans of the pass and have said Lincoln’s handwriting appears authentic, but any concerns they had could only be put to rest if they were able to see the original. As such, their opinions were qualified.
After receiving the scans of the front and back of the pass, it was the partial City Point frank (stamp) that allowed authors Singer and Stewart to conclude that the pass was authentic. Here is why: The City Point frank proved that Lloyd had crossed into Federal territory through City Point, Virginia. It would have been impossible to forge the frank at the point of entry. The pass had to be presented to an official who would have stamped it. After examining the scan, the letters M A Y (the month) are legible on the back of the pass, but the rest of the date is not. When comparing the positioning of the month to other scans of authentic passes held in private collections, the size of the letters as well as their positioning corresponded to the Lloyd pass.
After Lloyd had been in Washington for a while, he indicated in a letter to Secretary of War Stanton that he had arrived on or around May 24, 1865. This is believable as the pass was delivered to Grant’s office on that day, or on May 25, at the latest. In addition, upon further examination, the pass was folded several times. The folds were not pre-creased and are visible. They were clearly done after the pass was issued as the creases nearly caused the pass to tear. Thus folded, the pass was approximately the size of a quarter and easily concealed. Our inescapable conclusions rest: Unlike William Alvin Lloyd, the man who defrauded the US government and got away with it, the pass he concealed throughout the war is not, as he was, a brazen fake.