Who is this person?

[Steve]

(03-10-2023 04:28 AM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  Professor Burlingame provided additional evidence regarding the character of Mrs. Bixby (Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume Two, page 737):

"She lost two of her boys and tried to cheat the government out of money by claiming the others had been killed. Of the three survivors, one had deserted to the enemy, another may have done so, and the third was honorably discharged. Mrs. Bixby was born in Virginia, sympathized with the Confederacy, and disliked Lincoln so much that she apparently destroyed the letter in anger. Evidence suggests that she ran a whorehouse in Boston and was 'perfectly untrustworthy.'"

Almost none of that is true.

According to her self reported birthplace in records the decades prior and after the war, she listed her birthplace as Rhode Island.

She definitely didn't run a whorehouse in Boston. She first arrives in Boston in 1859. Prior to that she lived in Hopkinton Mass. and Rhode Island. If the Boston city directories can be believed, she may have tried to be a nurse during the war to get some income.

At the time she went to visit Adjutant-General Schouler in the late summer of 1864, she was already receiving a government pension after the death of son Charles. Sons Henry, Oliver, and George were married and she wouldn't have been entitled to a pension for them anyway. Following the death of son Oliver on July 30, 1864 in Petersburg, Mrs Bixby became the guardian of Oliver's oldest son from his first marriage. It's possible that she went to see Schouler to see if the grandson could temporarily be added to her pension until he turned 16, like the children of other fallen soldiers in their widow's pensions.

At the time she went to see Schouler, she had every reason to believe 4 of her sons had been killed. Sons Henry and George were captured as POWs. There's actually an 1863 Boston newspaper article where Mrs Bixby is quoted mourning the death of son Henry following the battle of Gettysburg. I've checked Henry's civil war medical record and he was a patient in military hospitals in Maryland and Pennsylvania. He wasn't furloughed until early October 1864 and due to Lydia Bixby's constantly changing addresses, he may not have been able to contact her until then. Also, the two Boston newspapers which originally printed the letter mention an unnamed "sixth son" who was recovering at Readville. That's Henry, where he went to recover further after his furlough was over. The two Republican newspapers didn't go to visit Bixby or interview her, but got the information and letter text from Schouler. The only way those newspapers could've known about the son at Readville is if Mrs Bixby had updated Schouler, telling him that Henry was still alive PRIOR to the letter's arrival.

Son George was captured on the same day that Oliver was killed. The last record where we know George was still alive is when he arrived at Salisbury Prison on October 9, 1864. He had previously been held as a POW at Richmond. George died at Salisbury Prison sometime between then and February 1865. So while George was definitely still alive when she went to see Schouler, we don't know if he was still alive when she received the letter. Mrs Bixby apparently didn't learn that George had been captured and not killed until newspapers reported the fact after the letter had been printed and reprinted in the papers. Later reports that George had deserted to join the Confederate Army while at Salisbury are not true.

Son Edward did desert the Army in 1862 and Bixby does seem to have lied to Schouler about it. She never applied for a pension for Edward even though he deserted a year before Charles was killed and Henry was captured. So that can't be the reason why she lied to Schouler. Testimony Edward gave at his 1870 trial for larceny suggests he may have become a "bounty-jumper" following his desertion. Here's his testimony as reprinted on page 8 of the 21 February 1870 edition of the Springfield Daily Republican:



Strangely, the paper can't bring itself to say that Edward was one of the five sons the letter referred to, having mistakenly been reported killed.

In regards to your prior post, there is no credible evidence that Hay ever claimed to have been the author of the letter. All those accounts fall apart on closer inspection.