LOUISIANA, Mo. — Did he or didn’t he?

Intrigue still surrounds Senator John Brooks Henderson’s visit to the White House on April 14, 1865.

The Louisiana Missouri lawmaker was seeking President Abraham Lincoln’s pardon of a Confederate spy from Canton named George Vaughn. The Virginia-born rebel’s execution was to take place two days later.

There are arguments for and against the pardon being Lincoln’s last official act. Until his death in 1899, Vaughn claimed it was. Most historians have said it was not.

In any event, Henderson consulted with Lincoln about the case, saying that with the end of the Civil War the pardon should be made in the interest of peace and conciliation.

Within hours, Lincoln was mortally wounded at Ford’s Theatre by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth.