Bixby letter

The Bixby Letter is a famous letter, credited to U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, to a bereaved mother of five sons who were thought to have died while fighting in the American Civil War.

In 1864, Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew wrote to President Lincoln concerning one Mrs. Lydia Bixby, a widow who was believed to have lost five sons during the Civil War. Lincoln's letter to her was printed by the Boston Evening Transcript.

The following is the text of the letter:

Executive Mansion,

Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

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

Mrs. Bixby was a Confederate sympathizer, and destroyed the letter shortly after receiving it. It was also later discovered that only two of her five sons, Charles and Oliver Bixby, had died in battle. Of the other sons, one deserted, one was discharged honorably and the third either deserted or died as a POW, according to Abraham Lincoln Online.

Some scholars believe that the letter was actually written by Lincoln's secretary John Hay, although that theory is no longer as popular as it once was.

During World War II, the five Sullivan brothers were lost when their ship, the USS Juneau, was torpedoed.

References to this letter

• An extract, "The solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom" adorns the statue in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.
• In Saving Private Ryan, Gen. George Marshall (played by Harve Presnell) quotes this letter to his officers before ordering them to find Private Ryan.

See also

• Sole Survivor Policy