Timothy Ballard - The Lincoln Hypothesis

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ballard, Timothy, author.

The Lincoln hypothesis : a modern-day abolitionist investigates the possible connection between Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and Abraham Lincoln / Timothy Ballard.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-60907-863-8 (hardbound : alk. paper) 1. Lincoln, Abraham, 18091865. 2. Smith, Joseph, Jr., 18051844. I. Title.

E457.B23 2014

973.7092'2dc232014005301

Printed in the United States of America

R. R. Donnelley, Crawfordsville, IN

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Katherine

Preface

This is not a history book, at least not in the purest sense. (I know this because I have published a few history books.) Rather, this work is an investigative journeyan exploration. Unlike a pure historical work, this book goes beyond the safe recitation of facts and events and opens doors that encourage you, the reader, to wonder, opine, speculate, and hope. This book will contain many valuable facts and sound historical conclusions, but it will also include unsubstantiated, yet compelling, ideas that I believe are also worthy of serious consideration.

Allow me to add some context to what Im trying to explain. I have spent almost my entire professional life as a Special Agent/Criminal Investigator. In pursuing criminal cases, I have been trained to work around a legal concept called Totality of the Circumstances. This concept promotes the idea that a good investigation gathers all evidence: direct, indirect, circumstantial, opinion, conjectureeverything! The prosecutor in any case wants to know it all because the prosecutor knows that although any one piece of evidence by itself may have little meaning, all of it togetherthe Totality of the Circumstancescould have powerful implications. It is the judges and jurys job to analyze it all and draw final conclusions.

The pure history books I have written in the past revolve around the scriptural idea that America is a promised land, foreordained by God Almighty to bless the world with liberty and truth. While researching and writing on this subject for over a decade, I would from time to time uncover a fascinating, if not bizarre, connection between Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and Abraham Lincoln. Some of the ideas were easily substantiated; others, though highly interesting, were not. And so I set them all aside.

Through the years, however, the pieces of evidence (whether fully substantiated or not) began piling up so high that I could no longer dismiss them all as multiple random links in one long chain of coincidences. The investigator in me took over, and I felt compelled to deliver the Totality of the Circumstances to the court of public opinionto you! Hence, this book.

As you read, you will, like a prosecutor reviewing a case or a jury determining a verdict, identify valuable pieces of evidence that can be fully substantiated. You will also identify pieces of evidence that cannot. I ask you to consider all the evidence and weigh it all carefully. Through this study, many questions regarding the interplay between the restored gospel and the Civil War will be answered. New questions may emerge that will not be so easily answered. To be sure, this is only a hypothesis. Either way, I invite you to join me on this exhilarating investigative journey through a most fascinating era, a time when the Restoration of the gospel intersected with American sociopolitical events like perhaps no other time in history.

Timothy Ballard

January 2014

Introduction

For over a decade, I have had a most bizarre jobsome might even say it is a calling. Im not sure how I got here. I certainly never intended to be doing (nor did I ever imagine in my wildest dreams that I would be doing) the things I do. I have never felt qualified enough, prepared enough, or even brave enough. I bring this up only because unless you understand the things I have been forced to deal with over the past dozen years, you will never fully understand how I am able to tell you the story you are about to read in this book.

Perhaps the best way to explain this is to tell you about a real-life event I was part of. The hour was 0545. After several depressing days of working the streets in one of the most ungodly neighborhoods the world has to offer, my team at last had our target directly in our sights. The target looked like a normal middle-aged adult male on the outside, but I knew he was nothing more than a monster on the inside. He was a modern-day slaveholder, even worse than the slaveholders you have read about in history books. For he enslaved children and forced them into the sex industry.

As the team leader, I gave the signal to breach the dirty, off-white door. It was still dark outside, with the exception of the half-lit porch light dangling by its electric cords over the threshold we were about to enter. But the darkness on the outside of the monsters lair was nothing compared to the darkness I was about to feel upon entering.

Boom! One of the agents in front of me slammed his breaching tool (a miniature but powerful battering-ram device we call the key to the city) into the door, blowing it wide open. The jolting noise alerted all of our senses and almost overdosed my system with adrenaline. Then it was on.

The two agents in front of me entered and swung right but found no targets before them. I took the lead on the left, keeping my Glock 19 (fully equipped with attached pistol light) in the high-ready position. Within seconds, the monsters face emerged from the pitch-black and appeared before my eyes. Seeing that he was caught off guard, and knowing his eyes had not yet adjusted to the pistol light shining in his face, I took advantage of the situation. Before he knew what had hit him, another agent and I had thrown him facedown on the ground. In that moment, I knew he would never be able to touch a child again.

I did not stay long with the monster but let others downline secure and extract him. I was going after a more important target: the only light, the only treasure in the house. I headed down the dark hallway. And there they were: two small boys, ages five and seven. I holstered my weapon and scooped them up in my arms. I just wanted them out of the darkness that had haunted and oppressed them for far too long. I made my way back down the hallway and headed for the front door. As I passed back across the threshold and into the dawning day, the morning breeze calmed me. The younger boy tightened his grip ever so gently around my necknot out of fear, but almost as if he knew me and loved me, or at least loved what I represented. He instinctively knew we were the good guys.

At that moment, the feeling I had become so accustomed to in other such situations overcame me. Yes, I had felt it before and would feel it after this particular case. I had felt it multiple times while posing as a child trafficker in Central America. I felt it on the occasions when, after the sting deal went down (and my own mock arrest by foreign authorities saw me facedown on pavement), I could look up and see those poor children I was pretending to buy. Though handcuffed as part of the show to keep my cover, I would always strain to catch a glimpse of those precious souls being scooped up by other loving hands and taken to a safe haven far from danger. That was when the feeling would come.