The Bixby Letter

[Finnigan]

I was at the Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield this past Friday (the 28th) and I stopped in the Lincoln Collection to see Dr. Cornelius.

He told me that he's being cautious and waiting a few months to see what the consensus ultimately is. He did remark however that this is the only example of Lincoln using the word "beguile" in any of his known writing. However, he says that the word has been found in letters written from Kentucky in the early 19th century, so it's probably a word that would have been in his vocabulary at an early age.

Two humorous points from our conversation on the letter: First off, he said "The computer algorithm was 90% accurate, and you know what happens when computers are 90% accurate! The stock market crashes!"

And then when he had pulled out of the vertical files the article from Time.com for me to read, he had meanwhile pulled out another paper with the Bixby letter, written in ink on old-fashioned parchment paper. He read this as I read the article, and I jokingly asked, "Oh, is that the original?" And he replied likewise, "Ah yes, it's been here the entire time, and now I'm holding it in my ungloved hand!"

[RJNorton]

Many thanks, David, for posting about your visit with Dr. Cornelius. (Time to short the market?)

[ELCore]

(08-04-2017 01:11 PM)Finnigan Wrote:  Two humorous points from our conversation on the letter: First off, he said "The computer algorithm was 90% accurate, and you know what happens when computers are 90% accurate! The stock market crashes!"

Granted, that was an attempt at humor. However, it mischaracterizes what the researchers say happened:

Quote:Nearly 90% of the time, the n-gram tracing method identified Hay as the author of the Bixby letter. The other roughly 10% of the time, the analysis was inconclusive. (Those times were when the researchers used groupings of just 1 or 2 letters at a time, rather than whole words, and those combinations proved extremely common overall.)

I don't believe "90% accuracy" is a correct description of the results. This would be a better description: the results indicated Hay as author 9 times out of 10, but never indicated Lincoln as author.

[Steve]

A new article about the Bixby letter was published last month by someone named Joshua Nieters. A good deal of it is recapping from other sources and there are a few errors (ie the wrong Mrs Bixby photo, the parole camp being located at Indianapolis instead of Annapolis, etc). But there is a bunch of new information on son George Bixby before the war and son Edward Bixby before and after the war:

http://baltimorepostexaminer.com/the-wid...2018/07/21

Especially important are two newspaper accounts found by Nieters. One is a letter printed in the 04 April 1874 Boston Globe:



The other, and most intriguing new information, is an 1870 article on son Edward's trial for larceny where he told the court of his Civil War activities and post-war activities, including a sojourn to South America.

Based on other Civil War POW's, I've always suspected that son Henry, who died of consumption/tuberculosis in 1871, contracted it while a prisoner. But the Globe article above is the first evidence that would seem to prove that.

[RJNorton]

Thanks for posting, Steve. I have often read that Mrs. Bixby's income came from keeping a house of prostitution. Maybe I am missing it, but is there definite evidence that this is true (beyond what the police apparently said)?

[Steve]

(08-10-2018 04:09 AM)RJNorton Wrote:  Thanks for posting, Steve. I have often read that Mrs. Bixby's income came from keeping a house of prostitution. Maybe I am missing it, but is there definite evidence that this is true (beyond what the police apparently said)?

The only evidence of Mrs. Bixby running a house of prostitution comes from the 1904 memoir of Boston socialite Sarah Cabot Wheelwright. It was part of a larger account of her life written for her daughter. Here's the text of the account relating to Bixby:


Another woman to whom I gave work was a Mrs. Bixby, who had been recommended to me by Mrs. Charles Paine as being very deserving. She claimed to have five sons in the army. She was a stout woman, more or less motherly-looking, but with shifty eyes. We called her “Mother Bixby.” I did not like her, but there seemed to be good reason for helping her. Having heard that there were means of getting supplies to Libby Prison (a very difficult thing to do) I was desirous of sending a box of small comforts to the soldiers. Speaking of it to her, she said that one of her sons was at home for a time on leave and that if I would come to her house in Albany Street or Essex Street — I forget which — she would tell me more about it. That morning I came in the cars with my cousin Mary Cabot, and she walked along the street with me while I was telling her about it, and waited on the doorstep while I was in the house — a very providential thing, as I found afterwards. I did not like the look of things at all, and the woman was very evasive; would give me no definite information — said her son was not there, and asked if I would meet him somewhere. I said that I would, and told her to send him to the ladies’ room in the Albany Station at a certain time. I was there at the time appointed, and presently a very ill-looking man, who had lost some of the fingers of his right hand, came towards me. He began with some familiarity, but I soon put a stop to him, finding I could get no information from him, and sent him off. Soon after this I received a very distressed letter from Mrs. Paine, saying that the police, on finding that we were helping this woman, had told her that she kept a house of ill-fame and was perfectly untrustworthy and as bad as she could be. We found that it was a convenient story for her to tell that she had five sons in the war, but that probably not more than two were her sons; the others were inmates of this house of ill-fame. Later, after the war, I saw in a newspaper the following letter written by President Lincoln to Mrs. Bixby:

November 21 , 1864.

Dear Madam:

I have been shown in the report of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who died bravely on the field of battle. I feel how fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from a loss so overwhelming. But I can not refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the purest memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.

Yours very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln.

This was written by Mr. Lincoln amid all the excitement attendant upon his re-election to the Presidency. To think that these precious words should have been sent to this worthless woman, and that such blunders should have been made in the War Department!

It is discouraging that as late as 1904 this lie should have been repeated in a book which I take up this very day.

[Steve]

I finally found a version of the 1870 Edward Bixby article mentioned by Nieters' article. It's an earlier version, possibly the original, from page 8 of the 21 Feb. 1870 Springfield Republican:

   

It seems to me that it would be mentioned in an earlier Boston newspaper article rather than a Springfield paper but I have yet to find mention of it in a Boston paper.

[ELCore]

For those interested, this appears to be the text of the paywalled article "Attributing the Bixby Letter using n-gram tracing" published in Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, Volume 34, Issue 3, September 2019, Pages 493–512: https://niniandrea.files.wordpress.com/2...racing.pdf.

[ELCore]

I have finally marshalled all my thoughts on the authorship of the Bixby Letter. "One doesn't so much finish a work as give up on it" is my memory of a quip by some famous author: that's how I feel about this.

John Hay Wrote the Bixby Letter

I solicit your opinions.

Thanks, and blessings to all in this new year.

[Gene C]

For me, the interesting feature to the Bixby letter is whether or not the circumstances behind the letter are true.
Did Mrs. Bixby have five sons who died on the field of battle?

If we are to examine who wrote it, examining John Hay's direct answer to that question carries more weight in my mind than second and third hand comments
or computerized stylometric analysis.

Written under different circumstances than the Bixby letter, I've always admired Lincoln's letter of condolence to Fanny McCullough. http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/linc...0Illinois.

A good article Lane. You did a nice job in presenting your information.

[RJNorton]

(01-07-2021 08:56 AM)Gene C Wrote:  For me, the interesting feature to the Bixby letter is whether or not the circumstances behind the letter are true.
Did Mrs. Bixby have five sons who died on the field of battle?

If we are to examine who wrote it, examining John Hay's direct answer to that question carries more weight in my mind than second and third hand comments
or computerized stylometric analysis.

Written under different circumstances than the Bixby letter, I've always admired Lincoln's letter of condolence to Fanny McCullough. http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/linc...0Illinois.

A good article Lane. You did a nice job in presenting your information.

Gene, here is what I have regarding the sons. President Lincoln was misinformed as to the number of Mrs. Bixby's sons who had been killed. She had actually lost only two sons in the war. Sgt. Charles N. Bixby was killed May 3, 1863. Pvt. Oliver Cromwell Bixby was killed July 30, 1864. However, Corp. Henry Cromwell Bixby was discharged on December 19, 1864. Pvt. George Way Bixby was captured July 30, 1864, and then deserted to the enemy. He moved to Cuba after the Civil War. Edward Bixby also deserted from his unit. This information on Mrs. Bixby’s sons comes from p. 277 of Abraham Lincoln: From Skeptic to Prophet by Wayne C. Temple.

Lane, I second what Gene said. You did a very good job of presenting the case for John Hay being the letter's author.

[ELCore]

Thank you, gentlemen.

As to the issue of the actual situation of Mrs. Bixby's family, I had given some thought to expounding on that, perhaps in an "Appendix" before the bibliography. But after reading Robert Lincoln's Jan. 4, 1918, letter to Markens, in which he discusses that issue, I agree with him:

Quote:I think, however, that it would be rather a pity at this late date to go into that, for it would only distract attention from whatever there is of admiration for the character of the letter itself.

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(01-07-2021 08:56 AM)Gene C Wrote:  For me, the interesting feature to the Bixby letter is whether or not the circumstances behind the letter are true.
Did Mrs. Bixby have five sons who died on the field of battle?

If we are to examine who wrote it, examining John Hay's direct answer to that question carries more weight in my mind than second and third hand comments
or computerized stylometric analysis.

I do not know if John Hay ever addressed that issue, though I may have overlooked that. As Roger has already noted, some of her sons did survive. We don't really know if she knew that at the time, though, I don't think.

[Steve]

(01-07-2021 08:56 AM)Gene C Wrote:  For me, the interesting feature to the Bixby letter is whether or not the circumstances behind the letter are true.
Did Mrs. Bixby have five sons who died on the field of battle?

If we are to examine who wrote it, examining John Hay's direct answer to that question carries more weight in my mind than second and third hand comments
or computerized stylometric analysis.

Gene,
Here's the info on the Bixby sons:

Sgt. Charles N. Bixby D Co. 20th Mass. - killed near Fredericksburg on May 3, 1863.

Pvt. Oliver Cromwell Bixby E Co. 58th Mass. - killed near Petersburg on July 30, 1864.

Cpl. Henry Cromwell Bixby K Co. 32nd Mass. - captured during the Battle of Gettysburg on July 2, 1863. Paroled at City Point on March 7, 1864. First taken to the hospital at Camp Parole in Maryland, then transferred to the Union Army hospital in York, PA. Discharged from the Army hospital at York in early October 1864 and furloughed. After his furlough was over he was readmitted to the Army hospital in Readville Mass., which is where he was when the letter arrived on 25 Nov. 1864. Mrs. Bixby thought he had been killed at Gettysburg when she visited Adjutant-General Schouler sometime in late August or early September. Henry was hospitalized at the time and probably was unable to contact his mother based on her address changes since he had been captured the previous year. He died of tuberculosis on Nov. 8, 1871; so it's possible he could've contracted it during his time as a POW. This letter to the editor printed on page 7 of the April 4, 1874 Boston Globe says that Henry's tuberculosis was contracted during his military service:



Pvt. George Way Bixby B Co. 56th Mass. - captured near Petersburg on July 30, 1864 (the same day Oliver had been killed). He was first taken to Richmond but was later transferred to Salisbury Prison on Oct. 9, 1864. He died there sometime between then and late February 1865 when POWs began to be paroled from Salisbury Prison. Mrs. Bixby believed George had been killed when she went to see Schouler sometime in late August or early September 1864. He may have been still alive when the letter was sent. The report of George's death by a paroled Salisbury POW didn't say when he had died. Please note, another Salisbury POW (who actually escaped and wasn't paroled) claimed George deserted by joining the Confederate army but he seems to have confused George for another POW from the 56th Mass. who did join the Confederate Army at Salisbury.

Pvt. Arthur Edward Bixby C Co. 1st Mass. Heavy Artillery - deserted from Ft. Richardson (one of the defensive forts around Washington DC) on 28 May 1862. In October 1862, Mrs Bixby visited Adjutant-General Schouler asking for a discharge for Edward for enlisting underage and also for help to visit son Charles who was hospitalized for illness shortly after the Battle of Anteitam. It's unknown whether she knew Edward had deserted or not, but I suspect she knew that he had and this was some sort of "Mom solution" to get rid of the desertion charge. Here's an image of Mrs. Bixby's affidavit at that time:



Two years later, Mrs. Bixby visited Schouler again sometime in late August or early September 1864, for unknown money reasons. Perhaps, it was because she had become the legal guardian of Oliver's son from his first marriage following his death a month or so earlier and she wanted a temporary increase in her widow's pension to reflect that. My suspicion/theory is that when Schouler asked her what happened to her younger son from 2 years before, she was like "Oh, he... died"

---

Lane, your article was well written I'll share my thoughts on it in a little bit.

[Gene C]

Thanks Steve.
You were up early this morning

[Steve]

Lane,

After a delay, here's my thoughts. Just so you know, I'm agnostic about the letter's authorship. I don't think there's enough evidence to prove Hay wrote the letter, just linguistic similarities that he might. Also, if Hay did compose the letter in a draft copy; I believe Lincoln may have copied it in his own hand (and possibly making slight alterations to the text) to make the physical letter delivered to Mrs. Bixby. I may expand on this on a later post.

Now about the article; I think your analysis of Robert Lincoln's letter to Isaac Markens is one of the best that I've read in regard's to the authorship question. Here's the quotation copied from Lane's article:

I think I have not acknowledged your letter of February 20th, in regard to the Bixby letter. Your suggestion that neither Nicolay nor Hay probably had any special knowledge of the letter at the time is correct. Hay himself told me so; when I took the matter up Nicolay had died and it was he who had compiled the collection of papers. It is entirely possible that neither of them knew of the letter at all; my father had no letter books and copies of his letters and documents were only made in special cases, many such copies being in the papers I now have, mostly drafts in his own hand — it is entirely possible that my father wrote this letter at his desk, folded it, addressed it and gave it to General Schouler without anybody else about him knowing of it.

When I first read Emerson's article, I tended to agree with his interpretation that Lincoln meant that Hay told him that he had no knowledge of the letter when it was written - implying that Hay couldn't have written it since to write the letter he undoubtly would've had to have known about it. Although, I didn't think it was the slam dunk case for Lincoln authorship Emerson implied - Robert could've misinterpreted/misrememberd what Hay said or Hay could've been reluctant to tell Robert about his role with the letter. But I think your point about not knowing what Robert means by "special knowledge of the letter at the time" - especially since Robert speculates later in the letter that Hay may have not known about the letter at the time at all - is a very good point. Why would Robert have to speculate if Hay had definitively told Robert that he had no knowledge at all of the letter when it was originally sent? Good catch.

Unfortunately, due to "circumstances" peculiar to me; I cannot comment on the computerized stylometric analysis section of your article (at least in a way which would be fair to you) on a public forum at this time.

Now to the last section about the eyewitnesses claiming that someone told them that Hay told them that he wrote the letter. That comes off as hearsay to me and extremely unreliable. Catherine Beveridge is a better witness than the others due to her brother, Spencer Eddy, working as Hay's secretary, but she might have only been interpreting her brother's opinion as fact. Because she sepeculates "that he had presumably heard (or inferred) from some conversation with Mr. Hay or Mr. Adams." That quote makes it seem like she didn't know where he got the idea that Hay wrote the letter or if his source was reliable (Hay) or not.

As to the others I think Nicholas Murray Butler is lying about British diplomat John Morley telling Butler about Hay telling Morley that he (Hay) wrote the letter. It seems to resemble an account written in 1922 by British Rev. G. A. Jackson to British essayist E.V. Lucas (which Lucas later had published in one of his books in 1934) in which Jackson claimed a Lady Stafford had told him that American ambassador Walter Page had told her that Hay had told him (Page) that he (Hay) had written the letter. Lucas associated with Butler during Butler's trips to England, so he could've told Butler about Jackson's letter, especially given Butler's academic interests. As far as Jackson's original letter, he's 3 steps in transmission away from Hay.

As far as Rollo Ogden is concerned, he could be misremembering what Bronwell said or one of the men could've been exagerating. According to F. Lauriston Bullard, Hay's children said he never told them he wrote the letter - why wouldn't he tell them if he was telling all these random people? Also, Hay never admitted to writing his anonymously published novel The Bread-Winners. If he did compose the letter for Lincoln, I'm not sure he would be the type to admit it to random people (which are basically all the supposed witnesses, except for Spencer Eddy) out of respect for Lincoln's memory. Just because I don't think he would break "keeping the secret" doesn't mean I think he couldn't have written it. I just don't think there's enough evidence to be reasonably sure either way.

Even though my interpetation differs from you on the latter point, I still think your article is very good.