Letter to Mrs Bixby

Am Shoot Journal ^ | 5/26/2018 | J Hines

[w1n1]

Remember the scene in the movie “Saving Private Ryan” where a General George C Marshall (U.S.Army Chief-of-Staff) reads a condolences letter from the late President Abraham Lincoln? Is this letter a hoax or a myth?
In the autumn of 1864 Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew wrote to President Lincoln asking him to express condolences to Mrs. Lydia Bixby, a widow believed to have lost five sons during the Civil War. Lincoln’s letter to her was printed by the Boston Evening Transcript. Later it was revealed that only two of Mrs. Bixby’s five sons died in battle, Charles and Oliver. Of the remainder, one deserted the army, one was honorably discharged, and another deserted or died a prisoner of war.

The authorship of the letter has been debated by scholars, some of whom believe it was written instead by John Hay, one of Lincoln’s White House secretaries. Apparently the original letter was destroyed by the newspaper editor after publication or by Mrs. Bixby, who may have been a Confederate sympathizer and disliked President Lincoln. Copies of an early forgery have been circulating for many years, causing some people to believe they possess the original letter. Read the rest of this letter to Mrs. Bixby story here.

[ifinnegan]

The movie is utter malarky.

[Netz]

Right on!

[miniTAX]

“Sacrificing men to save a person because they are the remaining child is bulls—t IMO. “

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Exactly. I always found such Hollywood version of chivalry strains credulity. We are always told and even forced NOT to put oneself in harm ways trying to save someone else, which is basic common sense.

[laplata]

Not as good as The Longest Day.

[laplata]

“Band of brothers” is the best.

[Georgia Girl 2]

Mr. GG2,s older brother was killed while in the service about a month or two before Mr. GG2 was supposed to report for Marine sniper training. His mother invoked the sole surviving son clause. Mr. GG2 went to the induction center anyway and was pleading with the recruiting sgt. Finally some major or colonel or something got on the phone with him and said “go home son you will never be in the US military.”

So in a fit of grief and anger he got on a plane and went to Europe and travelled around the world. Ended up in Israel with the IDF on the Golan Heights as the first rockets came across in the Yom Kippur war. The IDF put an AK47 in his hands and asked if he knew how to use it. He said yes and they left him alone for 24 hours guarding a fence. They said anything tries to come across that wire kill it. We will be back for you later. The rest of the story is classified. So much for being able to keep an 18 year old from getting killed.