"But as time went on, her father no longer living, Miss Carroll noted how honors and emoluments were allotted to her fellow-laborers, and that her own work, owing to the peculiar circumstances that at first surrounded it and the untimely deaths of Mr. Lincoln and others who would gladly have proclaimed it, was wholly sinking into obscurity. A sense of the injustice of the case took possession of her and the conviction that history itself would be falsified if her silence continued."[31]
[Footnote 31: Abbie M. Gannet, in the Boston _Sunday Herald_.]
Thomas A. Scott and Mr. Wade, chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, and others well acquainted with her work were still living, able and desirous to establish her claim. By their advice and with their enthusiastic endorsement she made a statement of her case in 1870 and presented it before Congress, asking for recognition and a due award.
"Every lover of history, every true patriot, and, above all, every patriotic woman will be glad that she so decided."--_Mrs. Abbie M. Gannet._
It was not fitting that such achievements should be allowed to sink into oblivion.
Accordingly she made her claim, supported by the strongest and clearest testimony from the very men who were most competent to speak with absolute authority, Mr. Wade, Mr. Scott, and others of the War Department testifying again and again to the facts of the case.
It immediately became evident that a most determined effort was to be made to crush her claims. The honors of war were not to be allowed to rest on the head that had so ably won them. Personal and political interests were too strongly involved. If it had been a little matter it might have passed; but this was a case of such magnitude and importance, a case that must greatly change existing estimates.
To defeat the testimony was impossible. Other means must be used. Chicanery of every kind was resorted to.
Twice Miss Carroll's whole file of papers were stolen from the Military Committee, who were considering her claims.
Fortunately Miss Carroll possessed the original drafts of these letters. She speedily reproduced them, and the Military Committee and Mr. Hunt, the keeper of the records, having already examined the letters, accepted the new file and ordered them to be printed, thus giving them their guarantee; so that, to all intents and purposes, they became the same as the originals.