Sounds a lot like what happened at Pearl Harbor.
My Dad always believed Roosevelt knew an attack was coming and deliberately did nothing to stop it. He believed Roosevelt needed an excuse to get in the war, and unless the damage was serious enough, he couldn't get the American people to rally around going to war.
In his defense, he had been advised by the military that torpedoes would not work against the ships docked there because the harbor was too shallow and air dropped torpedoes would hit the harbor bottom. (Turned out the Japanese had planned for that.)
We know that the British had broken some of the Japanese coded messages and especially one detailing a planned attack. A lot of people think it is inconceivable that Churchill would not have told Roosevelt, and therefore it is thought that Roosevelt was deliberately allowing the attack to justify US entry into the war.
So yes, what Lincoln appears to have done does sound similar to what Roosevelt is believed to have done in World War II.