Lincoln's Letter to Mrs. Bixby (1864)

Abraham Lincoln | Nov. 21, 1864 | Abraham Lincoln

[soozla]

Executive Mansion, Washington, November 21, 1864

Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts

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 words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.

But I cannot refrain from tendering to 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,

Abraham Lincoln

[soozla]

A fitting tribute to those that gave all and the enduring pride of those who honor their memory each year on this day and always.

[VOA]

bump

[Graybeard58]

A. Lincoln sure knew how to put a lot into a few words.

[Agnes Heep]

A. Lincoln sure knew how to put a lot into a few words.

And yet his formal education was modest. If memory serves, he didn't even have a degree.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

This brings to mind the Sulliavan Brothers:

The five Sullivan Brothers were lost when the ship to which all five were assigned, USS Juneau (CL-52) was sunk on 13 November 1942. Many memorial efforts have honored the five brothers. Since their loss much confusion has resulted from the many myths surrounding both the Sullivan brothers and the Navy's policy regarding family members serving together at sea.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

Sulliavan = Sullivan

[zebra 2]

Aside from his policies, Lincoln was a wordsmith seldom equaled. I was required to memorize his Gettysburg Address in the eighth grade. Now 62, I still read it in passing, and am awed every time. Talk about economy of words...

[Spaulding]

Can't resist asking whether those deaths were necessary. I'm currently about three quarters finished reading Thomas De Lorenzo's "The Real Lincoln" with my children. It appears that Lincoln was a always a big spender, big government wig, and would be most comfortable with the Democrats were he alive today. Those woman's sons would have lived if Lincoln at allowed the secession, as clearly intended by the founders, of those Southern states who were being taxed to death.

Lincoln alive today, at least as documented by De Lorenzo, would have jailed or shot leaders of the major networks, and jailed state assemblies in Calif. New York Mass. Ill. ... He was very good at "Feel your pain" speeches, but practically lived in the telegraph room, probably commanding the burning of Shenandoah Valley, killing women and children in Atlanta and a dozen other cities.

I don't have Union or Confederate roots, and am certainly labeled by my liberal friends as a conservative. But Lincoln seems not to have trusted free markets, was big on taxes and tariffs. What other than a dictator could you label a president who suspends habeas corpus, ignores the courts and imprisons judges, uses the military to control elections and suspends free speech after starting a war to prevent the loss of natural resources by disallowing secession? Oh, and he never disavowed his belief that blacks should be free, but on other continents. He supported, sometimes with government funds, efforts to relocate blacks to Haiti, Puerto Rico, Africa,

[PolitBase]

shut up.

[PolitBase]

Sorry, but Lincoln, in my mind, is an incredible hero. Plus, this is the most beautiful prose example in the English language. No comment necessary.

[Seydlitz]

From the perspective of academic history, DeLorenzo's book is beneath contempt. It is a polemic, not real history.

Moreover, if we judged the politics of past leaders by the standards of today, we would find almost no one to be acceptable. DeLorenzo is the paleo-con's version of the script-writers for CBS' mini-series, "The Reagans".

[Shooter 2.5]

Not the time or the place.

[Proangel]

Love him or hate him he did keep the nation whole, which I believe was a better outcome for us and the world. (Can you imagine fighting WW1, WW2, or the war on terror without the Southern states?) Abe strongly believed in what was right for our nation, and mankind. With those strong beliefs, he had to make very tough decisions. In a sense, very much like the current occupant of the White House.

[Bobby Chang]

So true. I remember Fox playing it last year at the Coca-Cola 600 with drivers reading the letter. That is one of the all-time greatest scenes on television, and this letter should always be read during Memorial Day weekend.

[Keith]

Only one year, TOTAL, of formal education. A great lawyer who learned to write that way by writing briefs on the circuit...at a time when the word "brief" was taken literally...


;)

[philetus]

I agree with Politbase, STFU.

[Bedford Forrest]

Excellent post. It never hurts to remind the Lincoln lovers around here that Lincoln was a flunky of the railroads and a stone cold protofascist who drenched the country in blood to protect the economic interests of the northern banks and industrialists, specifically including his masters in the railroad industry. The endless paeans from the peons concerning his matchless rhetorical skills are positively nauseating, considering the terror and destruction he unleashed upon the republic, its Constitution and adherents. Like any other instrument of politics and war, the possession of rhetorical skills does not identify a man as good or evil. His works do. But ever since the day when Lincoln's name was quite justly added to the butcher's bill, his apologists have never ceased their hosannas to his rhetoric, as if his rhetorical power alone could sanctify his evil, lethal contempt for freedom and the original framework of the Constitution. Despite these efforts, Lincoln today has become a transparent political litmus test, an ideological spectrometer far more subtle and innocuous than say, a direct question about the Bill of Rights.

[Petronski]

DiLorenzo is a Lew Rockwell creep. Pity your children if you feed them that crap.

[Petronski]

Lincoln was a flunky of the railroads and a stone cold protofascist...

LOL You are a parody of yourself.