When his government was not focusing on censorship, Lincoln proved one of the ablest presidential press manipulators ever, fully as adept at generating press coverage as he was at preventing it. Although he held no news conferences and sat for no real interviews as we now understand them, Lincoln adroitly pulled wires on his own behalf behind the scenes, confiding news to press allies, providing them with copies of his letters for publication (they became known as “public letters”), and periodically misleading newspaper critics.
