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  • Famous "Bixby" letter surfaces

    Made famous by Saving Private Ryan, President Abraham Lincoln's personal letter to Mrs. Lydia Bixby, who lost sons in the Civil War.

    DALLAS — A Texas museum hopes a document found in its archives turns out to be an authentic government copy of Abraham Lincoln's eloquent letter consoling a mother thought to have lost five sons in the Civil War.

    The famed Bixby Letter, which the Dallas Historical Society is getting appraised as it prays for a potential windfall, has a fascinating history

    The original has never been found. Historians debate whether Lincoln wrote it. Its recipient, Lydia Bixby, was no fan of the president. And not all her sons died in the war.

    The letter, written with "the best of intentions" 144 years ago next week, is "considered one of the finest pieces of American presidential prose," said Alan Olson, curator for the Dallas group. "It's still a great piece of writing, regardless of the truth in the back story."
    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,453044,00.html

    Contents of letter:
    Dear Madam,

    I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.

    I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot 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 cherished 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.
    America doesn't deserve its military

    -Emma Sky

  • #2
    I can't help but hear Harve Presnell's voice whenever I see the text of that letter.
    “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

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    • #3
      An elderly friend of ours (she's 92 years old) had to move into a retirement home. She had some old books she thought I might like or could sell on ebay. I've seen those books before and not worth the trouble.

      However, one of them had a very tattered and torn letter on yellowed paper among the pages and she had put them in a plastic bag several years ago. I took them out of the bag and pieced it together like a jigsaw puzzle.

      It is two pages in length written by some guy named Grant to some other guy named Lee. It seems to state terms of certain restrictions but the officers would be allowed to retain their sidearms.

      I haven't had the chance to read and interpret it all. Going to find some sheets of glass to put it in between.

      Oh yeah, at the top of the first page I could make out the word "Appomatix".
      Able to leap tall tales in a single groan.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by RustyBattleship View Post
        An elderly friend of ours (she's 92 years old) had to move into a retirement home. She had some old books she thought I might like or could sell on ebay. I've seen those books before and not worth the trouble.

        However, one of them had a very tattered and torn letter on yellowed paper among the pages and she had put them in a plastic bag several years ago. I took them out of the bag and pieced it together like a jigsaw puzzle.

        It is two pages in length written by some guy named Grant to some other guy named Lee. It seems to state terms of certain restrictions but the officers would be allowed to retain their sidearms.

        I haven't had the chance to read and interpret it all. Going to find some sheets of glass to put it in between.

        Oh yeah, at the top of the first page I could make out the word "Appomatix".
        Incredible. Let me know how it turns out.
        America doesn't deserve its military

        -Emma Sky

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by RustyBattleship View Post
          An elderly friend of ours (she's 92 years old) had to move into a retirement home. She had some old books she thought I might like or could sell on ebay. I've seen those books before and not worth the trouble.

          However, one of them had a very tattered and torn letter on yellowed paper among the pages and she had put them in a plastic bag several years ago. I took them out of the bag and pieced it together like a jigsaw puzzle.

          It is two pages in length written by some guy named Grant to some other guy named Lee. It seems to state terms of certain restrictions but the officers would be allowed to retain their sidearms.

          I haven't had the chance to read and interpret it all. Going to find some sheets of glass to put it in between.

          Oh yeah, at the top of the first page I could make out the word "Appomatix".
          Could be quite a find RB, do keep us upto date.
          sigpicFEAR NAUGHT

          Should raw analytical data ever be passed to policy makers?

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by RustyBattleship View Post
            An elderly friend of ours (she's 92 years old) had to move into a retirement home. She had some old books she thought I might like or could sell on ebay. I've seen those books before and not worth the trouble.

            However, one of them had a very tattered and torn letter on yellowed paper among the pages and she had put them in a plastic bag several years ago. I took them out of the bag and pieced it together like a jigsaw puzzle.

            It is two pages in length written by some guy named Grant to some other guy named Lee. It seems to state terms of certain restrictions but the officers would be allowed to retain their sidearms.

            I haven't had the chance to read and interpret it all. Going to find some sheets of glass to put it in between.

            Oh yeah, at the top of the first page I could make out the word "Appomatix".
            That would be something. Wow.

            Comment


            • #7
              Finally put the letter together, more or less. Lacking a magnifying glass and needing cataract surgery next month, I had trouble making out some very small printing at the bottom left corner of page 2.

              After putting everything under glass, scanning it, improving contrast and reducing saturation I was able to make out that this is a facsimile of the surrender terms that was included in a copy of U.S. Grant's autobiography. But the copyright date is 1885 by Charles Webster and Company so it may be 130 years old.

              I think that when Grant had his autobiography published (and a facsimle of his signature in it clearly identified as such in the table of contents -- Ebay buyers beware, I've seen some for sale claiming it's an actual autograph) he had some copies made of the surrender terms he provided to General Lee.

              How many, I don't know. How many exist today, I don't know. Where the original is I don't know. It was actually a letter to Lee and two copies of its demands were to be made and distributed among assigned officers.

              You will notice a clause that allows the officers to keep their sidearms. Interesting as at one time Grant was also President of the National Rifle Association.

              Still an interesting letter.
              Attached Files
              Able to leap tall tales in a single groan.

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