Lincoln & the Bixby Letter

tjadams

tjadams

Joined Mar 2009
25,361 Posts | 13+
Texas
This is the famous letter written to Mrs. Lydia Bixby in November of 1864.
Do you think Lincoln wrote it or perhaps it was penned by his private secretary
John Hay?
lincolntomrsbixby.jpg
 
redcoat

redcoat

Joined Nov 2010
10,011 Posts | 3,078+
Stockport Cheshire UK
It would need to be checked by a hand writting expert, but on first impressions it has the feel of a genuine letter written by Lincoln.
 
tjadams

tjadams

Joined Mar 2009
25,361 Posts | 13+
Texas
'Experts' site the use of certain words in the letter that Lincoln hardly
ever used.
 
botully

botully

Joined Feb 2011
3,554 Posts | 72+
Amelia, Virginia, USA
Mike McClure said:
But is the handwriting his?
Click to expand...

I'll post more on this tomorrow, but for now I can say the handwriting in the copy is not Lincoln's, since the original has never been found, and this has long been known as a forgery, Hay himself calling it such. For a variety of other reasons most Lincoln scholars are as certain as can be that the letter was composed by Lincoln.
Again, I'll elaborate tomorrow.


(Win #1 for my beloved Patriots!)
 
bunyip

bunyip

Joined Sep 2010
2,960 Posts | 2+
The irony is that Mrs Bixby was apparently a Southern sympathiser who hated Lincoln and that she lost two of her five sons,not all of them. The authorship of the letter remains controversial.

The Bixby letter is a letter sent from the United States President Abraham Lincoln to a bereaved mother of five sons who were thought to have died while fighting for the Union in the American Civil War. The brief, consoling message was written in November 1864 to Lydia Bixby, a widow living in Boston, following a request from Massachusetts Governor John Albion Andrew. The text has been widely praised as one of Lincoln's finest works of writing alongside the Gettysburg Address and his second inaugural address.[1]
Some controversy surrounds the recipient, subject, and authorship[2] of the letter.[1] Although her sons died fighting for the Union, Mrs. Bixby seems to have personally supported the Confederacy. Not all five sons died in battle, with records showing that three of them were still alive years after the war. Historians have long debated whether the text was penned by Lincoln himself or by his assistant private secretary, John Hay. These factors have scarcely affected the reputation of the letter, which remains in the highest regard of many critics.[2] The letter was widely reprinted and the original is thought to be lost, yet this matter is frequently questioned as new copies are found and examined
Click to expand...


[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bixby_letter]Bixby letter - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
 
jegates

jegates

Joined Dec 2010
4,421 Posts | 0+
OH to VA back to OH
It would seem that the White House would have had staionary with "Executive Mansion" already on it, and therefore no need to hand-write it at the top. Just a guess...
 
steve53

steve53

Joined Apr 2010
1,297 Posts | 2+
That a man more than a century ago would know how to spell the word "assuage" and use it correctly is amazing.
 
Spartacuss

Spartacuss

Joined Jul 2010
7,575 Posts | 16+
Georgia, USA
I scanned through the wiki source bunyip provided. Interesting. Some rather unflattering characterizations of "Madame" Bixby in there. I personally have no doubt that Lincoln did write such a letter to her in good faith based on information he apparently trusted. And I have no doubt that Mr. Hay, or another of Lincoln's secretaries, copied it for the record of the president's correspondence. Perhaps the recorded copy is the source for all the forgeries that have appeared over the years. The source makes mention of a document found in Dallas that, at the time of the source's compostition, was being scrutinized by experts. Maybe a little help will come of it.
 
bunyip

bunyip

Joined Sep 2010
2,960 Posts | 2+
steve53 said:
That a man more than a century ago would know how to spell the word "assuage" and use it correctly is amazing.
Click to expand...

Why?

America not only already had some good universities,* literacy was high,with the average literate person reading a lot more today. It was also the age of flowery speech and the autodidact. EG until well into the twentieth century, it was not uncommon for a successful lawyer to never have attended university. Most famous example I can think is Abraham Lincoln.


000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

*Harvard;established 1636
Princeton;1746
Yale; 1701


Lincoln's formal elementary education consisted approximately of a years worth of classes from several itinerant teachers; he was mostly self-educated and was an avid reade
Click to expand...

[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln]Abraham Lincoln - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
 
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