August 23, 1987
By Jan Buffington
Vigo County Historical Society
Lincoln’s sympathy
President tried to comfort grief
One of the duties of Friends of the Museum is to conduct tours for school children.
Children visiting the Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley have many questions. One I often have been asked is, “What is your favorite thing in the museum?”
I have quite a few favorite things in each room, but what has affected me is a photostatic copy of a handwritten letter from President Abraham Lincoln to Mrs. Bixby from Boston, Mass. She had lost five sons in the Civil War.
Last winter, my son turned 18 and registered for the draft. The thought of him marching off to war as Mrs. Bixby’s sons did is hard for me to imagine, especially because it takes three days of nagging to get him to mow our tiny front lawn.
I grew up hearing the nightly broadcasts about the war in Vietnam. With each death reported, I couldn’t help but think of the families--how a telegram or a military person would come to their doors with the terrible news. I always wondered if anyone in high levels of government cared.
Lately, some of my questions have been answered. First, by this letter from President Abraham Lincoln. Then, most recently, by the televised memorial services for those who lost their lives in the Challenger tragedy, the car-bombing in Lebanon, the Newfoundland plane crash, and the attack on the USS Stark.
But times of war are not like times of peace. During war, when many lives are lost day after day, it is impossible for a president to console each family.
President Lincoln’s letter to Mrs. Bixby was written Nov. 21, 1864. The text follows:
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 alter of freedom.
Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln
The letter was copied and issued by the Americanization Department of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States to be used in the teaching history.
An interesting side note is the frame used for the letter. The backing has a sticker from Snyder’s Art Store, 21 S. Seventh St., Terre Haute. Further research shows that the store’s address changed to 27 S. Seventh in the early 1940s.
The museum received the letter in 1959 from the collection of F. Hunsucker. It can be found in the Military Room in the museum.
The Historical Museum of the Wabash Valley, 1411 S. Sixth St., is open from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.