Also appearing in the Sangamo Journal on June 17 and 24, and later on July 8, 15, 22, and 29, were six letters signed “Sampson’s Ghost,” in which the author or authors condemned Adams for defrauding Mary Anderson out of her husband’s land. (“Sampson” was Andrew Sampson, who had leased property to Adams with the understanding that the latter would pay the property taxes and that Sampson would be allowed to reclaim the land if he compensated Adams for any improvements he might make to the land. Adams eventually claimed the tract for himself, though it clearly belonged to Sampson. The author conflated Sampson and Anderson.) The author or authors also accused Adams of writing and planting letters in the Democratic press to injure Anson G. Henry, his opponent in the election for probate justice of the peace.

Given the details from the Anderson case and the contentious circumstances surrounding the election, these letters were possibly the work of Lincoln and his colleagues Stuart, Baker, and Logan. Charges that Lincoln made explicit in his handbill and subsequent replies to Adams’s rejoinders were more vague in the “Sampson’s Ghost” letters, but it is obvious that only the attorneys and their associates defending Mary and Richard Anderson would have been aware of the evidence upon which the author or authors made their accusations. Some contemporaries believed that the letters originated with Lincoln alone, and some modern scholars have also assigned Lincoln sole authorship, including the editors of The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, who included the “Sampson’s Ghost” letters as part of the case file for Wright et al. v. Adams. Roy P. Basler, editor of The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, did not include them, believing that Lincoln scholars had been “somewhat precipitous in assigning Lincoln’s authorship.” In the instance of pseudonymous or anonymous articles published in newspapers, Basler and his editors excluded all but those which they could prove were “incontrovertibly Lincoln’s.” Adams believed the letters came from a group rather than one individual, and Basler could find no internal evidence within the letters to determine conclusively that they came from Lincoln’s pen. Subsequent to the publication of the handbill and Lincoln’s replies to Adams’s rejoinders, the Sangamo Journal on September 30 and October 7, published letters from “An Old Settler” offering evidence of Adams’ dubious character and improper conduct in a land transaction with Elijah Iles. These missives may or may not have come from Lincoln, but incontrovertible evidence to his authorship could not be found, so Basler left them out of this edition. The editors of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln have largely followed Basler’s policy in regard to the “Sampson’s Ghost” letters and other pseudonymous or anonymous articles found in the press. Wright et al. v. Adams languished in the Sangamon County Circuit Court, the Schuyler County Circuit Court, and again in the Sangamon County Circuit Court until Adams died, whereupon the Sangamon County Circuit Court abated the case.