In January 2011 , agents of the National Archives and Records Administration ( NARA ) obtained a signed confession from Lowry that in 1998 he had smuggled a fountain pen into a NARA research room in Washington D.C. , and used it to alter the date on a presidential pardon issued by Abraham Lincoln to a Union soldier who had been sentenced to death by court martial . A NARA press release announced that Lowry admitted to changing the handwritten year of the 1864 pardon so that Lincoln 's signature appeared to be dated " April 14 , 1865 " – the same day Lincoln was assassinated at Ford 's Theater . Lowry had cited the altered document in his 1999 book '' Do n't Shoot That Boy ! Abraham Lincoln and Military Justice '' . It was alleged that Lowry 's motive was to gain publicity by claiming that he , as an independent researcher , had found what would have been the final official document signed by President Lincoln before his death
assassinated at Ford 's Theater
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Thomas P. Lowry