National Archives Intern Sells History on eBay
The problem with this is that he didn’t actually own the historical documents that he sold - he stole them from the National Archives.
Denning McTague, a hopefully former intern at the National Archives, allegedly stole about 165 Civil War documents - including the War Department’s announcement of President Lincoln’s death, and placed the items on the auction site eBay.
According to An Associated Press report on the incident, Mr. McTague has been able to help officials recover “most” of the items which included:
“…telegrams concerning troops’ weaponry, the Lincoln death announcement sent to soldiers, and a letter from famed Confederate cavalryman James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart, prosecutors said.”
Mr. McTague’s lawyer says his client plans to plead guilty to the charges.
Read the entire article at:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070319/ap_on_re_us/national_archives_theft
April 25th, 2007 at 12:32 am
Hi Bill. In browsing this episode, I am very interested in this article about items stolen and being auctioned on eBay. About 5 months ago I found an item for sale on another auction site which was a letter signed by Abraham Lincoln pardoning my 5Gr Grandfather for desertion. I could not get information about the seller through the website and had no idea that this theft had occurred. I wondered why an original Civil War document would be for sale–and going for $4300 at the time. I transcribed every bit of the letter and made copies of my screen so that I would have the whole document. Do you know what if anything can be done?
Sue