Who is this person?

[David Lockmiller]

(03-08-2023 07:20 PM)RJNorton Wrote:  On the other hand, Ed Steers argues that Lincoln was the author in Lincoln Legends: Myths, Hoaxes, and Confabulations Associated with Our Greatest President.

There is a thread on this topic here.

Roger wrote on Post #2 of the hyperlink thread:

This is a great question, Lane. The arguments on both sides seem convincing. Personally, I tend to agree with the latest research of Jason Emerson. Jason wrote an article titled "America's Most Famous Letter" for the February/March 2006 edition of American Heritage. Jason also wrote "New Evidence From an Ignored Voice: Robert Todd Lincoln and the Authorship of the Bixby Letter" in the Summer 2008 edition of the Lincoln Herald.

Here are just a couple of sentences from Jason's writing:

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"The letters quoted prove not only that Robert Lincoln believed his father had written the Bixby letter but also that John Hay himself told Robert he'd had nothing to do with it.

So we come to a satisfying conclusion: America's greatest President wrote America's greatest letter."

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I realize Michael Burlingame's research shows that John Hay told at least 6 people he wrote the letter; thus I am sure this debate will go on and on for a long time.





Professor Burlingame writes on this subject of authorship Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume Two, pages 736-737:

In the immediate aftermath of the election, Lincoln was unusually preoccupied. When Charles S. Spencer, head of the Lincoln and Johnson Campaign Club of New York City asked the president to provide a banquet toast, Lincoln wished to compose the text himself rather than have John Hay do it. [Emphasis added.] But as Hay told Spencer on November 25, Lincoln "was literally crowded out of the opportunity to writing a note" because "the crush here just now is beyond endurance."

Nor did Lincoln have time to write a suitable reply when Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew requested a presidential acknowledgement of the heroic sacrifice made by one of his constituents, a widow named Lydia Bixby, who (falsely) claimed that she had lost five sons in the war. For the president's signature Hay wrote a letter of condolence.

The Bixby letter, as Lincoln biographer James G. Randall noted, "has taken a pre-eminent place as a Lincoln gem and a classic in the language.



My point is this: Who would be more able to write like President Lincoln on the same set of facts (i.e., the letter of request made by Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew) than President Lincoln's long time secretary John Hay?

President Lincoln would have reviewed what had been written by Hay before signing the letter. If Lincoln thought an amendment to the letter as written by Hay was needed, he would have noted as such for correction. [Recall that the Emancipation Proclamation that was to be signed by President Lincoln on January 1, 1863 was returned to the Secretary of State for correction.] The letter itself would have been written in Hay's hand (not Lincoln's); the signature on the letter would have been in President Lincoln's hand. [I presume that the original letter is lost to history.]

An interesting footnote to history is provided by Professor Burlingame in the text (page 737): The adjutant general of Massachusetts, after hand-delivering the letter to Mrs. Bixby, provided copies to newspapers, which gave it wide distribution. One partisan Democratic journal sneeringly asked why "Mr. Lincoln's sons should be kept from the dangers of the field, while the sons of the laboring men are to be hurried into the harvest of death at the front? Are the sons of the rail-splitter, porcelain, and these other common clay?"