The Bixby Letter

[RJNorton]

(07-25-2017 11:59 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  (hence my question was it to expect the letter would be published?)

I think Lincoln first heard of Mrs. Bixby prior to the Presidential election, and he could have written it then and wished it to be published before Election Day (for PR). But he waited until after the election to write the letter, and I do not feel he expected it to be published.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Thanks, Roger!
(Please excuse if this has already been posted/discussed!) According to the Lincoln Log, Lincoln (?) wrote further letters on the very day:

"Lincoln writes to 104-year-old John Phillips, of Sturbridge, Massachusetts. In his lifetime, Phillips voted in many presidential elections, and he recently cast a vote for Lincoln's re-election. Lincoln thanks Phillips 'for the compliment paid me by the suffrage of a citizen so venerable.' Lincoln notes Phillips's 'devotion to civic duties,' and adds, 'It is not for myself only, but for the country which you have in your sphere served so long and so well, that I thank you.'"

"Writes former Cong. Augustus R. Wright (Ga.): 'Admitting that your cotton was destroyed by the Federal Army, I do not suppose any-thing could be done for you now. Congress has appropriated no money for that class of claims, and will not, I expect, while the active war lasts.'"

Here are the links to the transcriptions so you may compare the style and wording to the Bixby letter:
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/tex...oln8%3A261
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/tex...oln8%3A257

I couldn't find a handwritten version of any which would prove he at least penned those - can anyone else? (Thanks!)

[RJNorton]

It's interesting to note what it says regarding the letter to Phillips: "The draft or copy in the Nicolay Papers is on Executive Mansion stationery in an unidentified handwriting."

Could it be John Hay's handwriting? If this were true it might be an indication Hay was writing Lincoln's letters that day. I did a search in the Collected Works for "Psalmist's limit," and this is the only time he ever used it.

[Gene C]

As far as Lincoln knew when the Bixby letter was written, Mrs Bixby had lost 5 sons due to the war.
As a father who had also lost two sons, he was in a slightly better position to write a letter of sympathy than John Hay.
Add to that, he was close to Elmer Ellsworth when he wrote to the parents, knew Fanny McCollough and her father, I think he is touched by the horrors and responsibility of war more than John Hay.
Of Lincoln's secretarys, I personally think if he were to assign the responsability of writing the letter, he would have given the assignment to John Nicolay, the senior secretary, if he was available.

I would also expect the wording of the letter to be slightly more formal since Lincoln did not have a personal relationship with Mrs. Bixby compared to the Elsworth family and Fanny.

IMO a computer program can not adequately determine the intricacies of matters of the heart.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Looking through other letters by John Hay IMO shows that he was linguistically well versed and most likely capable to compose an appropriate letter of condolation such as the one to Mrs. Bixby:
https://archive.org/stream/lifelettersof...y_djvu.txt

[Gene C]

I haven't looked through Hay's letters, and you are probably right, he was a very capable young man or he wouldn't have been one of Lincoln's secretaries

[RJNorton]

(07-27-2017 10:07 AM)Gene C Wrote:  As far as Lincoln knew when the Bixby letter was written, Mrs Bixby had lost 5 sons due to the war.
As a father who had also lost two sons, he was in a slightly better position to write a letter of sympathy than John Hay.
Add to that, he was close to Elmer Ellsworth when he wrote to the parents, knew Fanny McCollough and her father, I think he is touched by the horrors and responsibility of war more than John Hay.
Of Lincoln's secretarys, I personally think if he were to assign the responsability of writing the letter, he would have given the assignment to John Nicolay, the senior secretary, if he was available.

I would also expect the wording of the letter to be slightly more formal since Lincoln did not have a personal relationship with Mrs. Bixby compared to the Elsworth family and Fanny.

IMO a computer program can not adequately determine the intricacies of matters of the heart.

Gene, as you know from my previous posts, I'd like to think Lincoln wrote the letter (but my hope on this is waning). John Hay apparently told several people he wrote the letter. I think there is sometimes a pattern when a person takes credit for someone else's work. In other words, it may happen more than once. Does anyone know Hay well enough to comment on this - in other words, did Hay take credit for other things that he did not do? If not, then IMO, I tend to doubt he would take credit for one isolated (although highly famous) letter if he were not the letter's author.

[Eva Elisabeth]

(07-22-2017 04:22 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  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."

I wonder when if at all Hay knew the original (handwriting) letter would not show up anymore. If Lincoln wrote the letter and Hay couldn't safely know it wouldn't pop up anymore, would he have claimed authorship? (There's, of course, the possibility that Abraham Lincoln wrote what Hay verbally suggested.)

[Eva Elisabeth]

Mrs. Bixby's case possibly was one of several similar ones (that remained unpublished). At all there were so many letters more than we know of. If it wasn't to expect the letter would be published (no publicity importance) it was possibly even a typical secretary job to reply to.
I just mean to say it wouldn't be unusual a presidential secretary would take care of such. Also the Lincoln Log doesn't know of all going on in Lincoln's life on that day of possibly more importance, keeping him and his mind busy. Who knows. (As for Danny McCullough and the Ellsworths - he could hardly have had Hay write their letters.)

"President Lincoln received from two to three hundred letters each day, and Stoddard testified that some of them went into the two huge wicker wastebaskets which flanked the sorting table...Hay guessed that Lincoln read only one letter in fifty; Nicolay estimated only one in a hundred. In answering his mail, the harried President rarely dictated, but instead made short endorsements suggesting appropriate replies. Important letters he answered himself in longhand, often doggedly spelling out the copy as well as the original. Since the White House office was unscreened, bugs swarmed in on hot summer nights, and their embalmed bodies remain congealed on some of the most important documents of the war years."
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/journals/ind.../7904/9521

[Steve]

(07-25-2017 11:36 AM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Somehow I personally don't get over the word "assuage". I had never heard/read it before "the Bixby letter" and cannot recall having come across it elsewhere. It sounds French and quite artificial to me, and rather matching Hay. Is it a word someone without the polish of such as Mme Mantelle's exclusive institution in those days would have used?

Lincoln used "assuage" in an 1842 speech:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/linc...1=assuaged

The 1862 order of observance following Martin Van Buren's death also uses "assuage", but I'm not sure it was actually written by Lincoln:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/linc...1=assuaged

Also, the Indiana Magazine article in your last post was very interesting and informative about Lincoln's letter writing habits

[Susan Higginbotham]

I have nothing to add about the Bixby letter, but thanks, Eva, for the link to the Indiana site! It brought me to a diary which allowed me to confirm the whereabouts of Emilie Helm on a certain date.

[Houmes]

(07-25-2017 11:59 PM)Eva Elisabeth Wrote:  Re. :"...then isn't it possible that Lincoln was trying to quickly write the letter could've asked Hay for advice on some of the wording?"
As I've stated before IMO Abraham Lincoln for sure didn't need advice on any wording - I'd rather think he didn't have/spend his limited time at all regarding the widow wasn't even personally known to him and it likely wasn't an important political affair (hence my question was it to expect the letter would be published?)
My imagination sees Hay writing and Lincoln signing the letter like it's a common practice when you have a secretary to take over office work.

Even a president with a talent for writing hopes an occasional letter might not be traced back to the hand of another. Here’s an example of increasing frustration for President-elect Lincoln, badgered by a woman wanting a government job.

No date, Oskaloosa, Iowa, written on a 2 ¾” X 4 ½” card.

My dear Madam,
The most I can say is that when the time comes, if it’s made to appear that the appointment of your friend to the Post-Office at Oskaloosa, will be as satisfactory to the people there, as would that of any other person, he will probably receive it, otherwise not. Yours truly, A. Lincoln

Not found in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy P. Basler, editor.

[Steve]

(07-29-2017 08:58 PM)Houmes Wrote:  Even a president with a talent for writing hopes an occasional letter might not be traced back to the hand of another. Here’s an example of increasing frustration for President-elect Lincoln, badgered by a woman wanting a government job.

No date, Oskaloosa, Iowa, written on a 2 ¾” X 4 ½” card.

My dear Madam,
The most I can say is that when the time comes, if it’s made to appear that the appointment of your friend to the Post-Office at Oskaloosa, will be as satisfactory to the people there, as would that of any other person, he will probably receive it, otherwise not. Yours truly, A. Lincoln

Not found in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Roy P. Basler, editor.

I found a link to an image of the card:

http://www.railsplitter.com/sale11/images/1848.jpg

Also, if anybody is interested, I found the Findagrave page for Deacon John Phillips which has a bio and photograph:

https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cg...=101814365

and attached an article from the July 10, 1863 Boston Evening Traveller incorrectly reporting son Henry's death at Gettysburg (it has several errors - the brother in the 20th Mass. was Charles and the other brother in that regiment was Henry in his first enlistment before he joined the 32nd Mass. Charles was killed during the 2nd battle of Fredericksburg during the Chancellorsville campaign).
   

[RJNorton]

Many thanks to Steve for sending this 1925 Boston Herald article:

[Steve]

I really wish that some researcher had gone to Mrs. Towers and gotten more information on what her mother said about her grandmother. As the article's written, despite it's title, Towers' quotes are a little ambiguous as to whether her mother actually said Bixby had made statements supporting the Confederate cause or if that was her daughter-in-law's opinion of her, especially following her indignant response to receiving the letter. Either way, Towers' mother probably told her more information about the family that would better illluminate what happened.

As to Towers' theory of Bixby being indignant over the wrong numbers of sons being killed in the letter; I can definitely see the point about son Henry whom she learned was still alive about a month prior to receiving the letter. But as far as I can tell it apparently was Bixby herself who falsely told Schouler that son Edward had died.