The Bixby Letter

[RJNorton]

I still hold out some hope (growing less by the hour admittedly) that Lincoln wrote the letter. In 1904 John Hay wrote a letter to John E. Chandler. Hay wrote:

"The letter of Mr. Lincoln to Mrs. Bixby is genuine, is printed in our edition of his Works, and has been frequently re-published; but the engraved copy of Mr. Lincoln's alleged manuscript, which is extensively sold is, in my opinion, a very ingenious forgery."

Some historians, including Dr. Mark E. Neely Jr., have concluded Lincoln was the author because Hay writes that the letter is "genuine." What did Hay mean by the word "genuine?" Is it really an indication that Lincoln wrote the letter? Or does it mean something else?

In his book about the letter, F. Lauriston Bullard wrote, "A letter is 'genuine' when it is not spurious, not counterfeit, when it is written by the person whose name it bears."