Museum finds "secret" message in Lincoln's watch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A gold watch owned by Abraham Lincoln bears a message marking the start of the U.S. Civil War, but the president never knew of the "secret" inscription uncovered on Tuesday at the National Museum of American History.

The engraving, by watchmaker Jonathan Dillon, is dated April 13, 1861, and reads in part: "Fort Sumpter was attacked by the rebels" and "thank God we have a government."

The museum said it agreed to open the watch to find out if the message really was there after it was contacted by the watchmaker's great-great-grandson, Doug Stiles of Waukegan, Illinois.

The American Civil War began when Confederate troops opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861.

Forty-five years later, Dillon the watchmaker told The New York Times that he was repairing Lincoln's watch when he heard that the first shots of the Civil War had been fired.

Dillon said he unscrewed the dial of the watch and used a sharp instrument to mark the historic day on the president's watch. He told the newspaper that, as far as he knew, no one had ever seen the inscription.

"Lincoln never knew of the message he carried in his pocket," Brent Glass, director of the National Museum of American History said in a statement. "It's a personal side of history about an ordinary watchman being inspired to record something for posterity."

Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States in November 1860. In the lead up to the Civil War, South Carolina and six other states seceded from the Union before Lincoln's inauguration in March 1861.
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Official fined for leaving secret files on train

LONDON (Reuters) – A senior civil servant who left secret intelligence files relating to Iraq and al Qaeda on a train was fined 2,500 pounds on Tuesday.
Richard Jackson, 37, from Yateley, Hampshire, admitted breaching the Official Secrets Act after he mislaid two documents when he inadvertently took them home on June 10.

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He was physically sick when he realized he had lost the files on a train from London Waterloo to Surrey, the Press Association said. During the hearing, he spent much of the time with his head in his hands.

Sentencing Jackson at City of Westminster Magistrates Court, Judge Timothy Workman said a custodial sentence would have been inevitable if the loss had risked damaging national security.

"I am conscious that he has already paid a heavy penalty, a significant reduction in income and damage to his own and his family's health," the judge said.
Jackson was suspended after the incident but has since returned to work, in a position described as at least three grades lower than before.
Defense lawyer Neil Saunders said Jackson had been under extreme pressure at the time of the loss.
"It may well be partly because of his own role, the team he was leading and the work he was being asked to conduct that he has made this gross error of judgment," he said. Jackson did not report the loss of the files until the following day as his immediate bosses were abroad.
Prosecutor Deborah Walsh said: "This delay in reporting delayed any action to recover the files."
One of the documents was marked top secret and the other was mid-level security. Jackson was on secondment from the Ministry of Defense to the Cabinet Office, the department that describes itself as the "head office" of government.
A Cabinet Office assessment said the loss had the "potential to damage national security and the UK's international relationships, but to date this appears negligible."
The files were passed to the BBC's security correspondent Frank Gardner.
(Reporting by Peter Griffiths; editing by Steve Addison)





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