The Bixby Letter

[RJNorton]

Laurie, Lincoln had been 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 Dr. Wayne C. Temple (Mahomet, Illinois, Mayhaven Publishing, 1995).

Regarding the letter, IMO the letter existed but was probably destroyed by Mrs. Bixby. Although the truth is unknown, her grandson was interviewed in 1925. He admitted his grandmother was not the type of person who would have appreciated the value of such a letter and most likely just threw it out. I have also read that Mrs. Bixby disliked Lincoln.

IMO the big difference among historians is not the letter's existence so much as its author - did John Hay or Abraham Lincoln write it? (Ed Steers, for example, argues that Lincoln was the author in Lincoln Legends: Myths, Hoaxes, and Confabulations Associated with Our Greatest President.) We once had a long debate on this in an older thread. There was no consensus among forum members as I recall. I was unaware some historians doubt its very existence - do you recall whom these folks are? I am curious as to their reasoning.

Michael Burlingame feels John Hay wrote the Bixby letter. He writes:

"Hay told half a dozen people that he wrote it. He pasted a copy of it into a scrapbook of his own writing. He used words like "beguile" and "assuage" regularly in it, which never showed up in Lincoln's writings. When you put all that together it seems virtually irrefutable that Hay was the author and Lincoln signed it. It's a beautiful letter, but it just doesn't sound like Lincoln; it's not Lincoln's "voice."

It was written at an extremely busy time at the White House. A fellow in New York who was the head of the Lincoln-Johnson committee in the 1864 campaign writes in mid-November to say they were having a banquet and wanted Lincoln to write a toast. Hay writes back and says that Lincoln really wanted to write the toast instead of having me do it but the crush of business around here is so great he just didn't have a chance. This was right at the time the Bixby letter was written.

On the same day the Bixby letter was written, a letter is written to John Phillips, a centenarian in Massachuetts who voted for Lincoln. A copy of that, too, is pasted into John Hay's scrapbook. It was the sort of thing you would expect a secretary to write. Lincoln did write very moving letters of condolence -- to the parents of Elmer Ellsworth and to Fanny McCullough, but those letters have a very different feeling, stylistic pattern, and tone from the Bixby letter."

SOURCE: http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/linc...ingame.htm

Jason Emerson argues that Lincoln was the true author in an American Heritage article: http://www.americanheritage.com/content/...ous-letter