5fish
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2019
- Messages
- 10,708
- Reaction score
- 4,559
I found this article about the famed Bixby letter and who really wrote the letter... a fun read... time to do Grant's memoirs....
snip...
Historians have argued for years about the famed 1864 “Bixby letter” that was sent to Lydia Bixby, a mother in Boston grieving the loss of her five sons in the war. The beautifully written letter was signed A. Lincoln, although it has been suggested that the note was actually written by John Hay, Lincoln’s secretary.
snip...
While facsimiles of the letter are in existence, the original has been missing for over 100 years, making it even harder to work out the letter’s true authorship.
snip...
Researchers at Aston University’s Centre for Forensic Linguistics tested 500 texts by Hay and 500 by Lincoln, before drawing the conclusion that the Bixby letter was written by the president’s secretary.
snip...
“Most of what we see in the Bixby letter is found in the writing of Hay, but not in Lincoln,” Nini said. In nearly 90 percent of the results, Hay was identified as the author of the letter. The remaining 10 percent of results were inconclusive.
snip...
There was renewed interest in the Bixby letter after it was read in the 1998 film “Saving Private Ryan.” It also sparked a new round of debate centering on Lincoln’s authorship and the fate of Bixby’s sons. Evidence indicates two of Bixby’s sons died, a third was a deserter and a fourth ended up in a prisoner-of-war camp, the Associated Press reported in 2008. A fifth is believed to have received a discharge, but his fate is unknown.
Abraham Lincoln letter mystery solved 150 years later
Forensic linguists say they have likely unraveled the mystery surrounding a famous Civil War-era letter, long believed to have been written by President Abraham Lincoln. Historians have argued for …
nypost.com
snip...
Historians have argued for years about the famed 1864 “Bixby letter” that was sent to Lydia Bixby, a mother in Boston grieving the loss of her five sons in the war. The beautifully written letter was signed A. Lincoln, although it has been suggested that the note was actually written by John Hay, Lincoln’s secretary.
snip...
While facsimiles of the letter are in existence, the original has been missing for over 100 years, making it even harder to work out the letter’s true authorship.
snip...
Researchers at Aston University’s Centre for Forensic Linguistics tested 500 texts by Hay and 500 by Lincoln, before drawing the conclusion that the Bixby letter was written by the president’s secretary.
snip...
“Most of what we see in the Bixby letter is found in the writing of Hay, but not in Lincoln,” Nini said. In nearly 90 percent of the results, Hay was identified as the author of the letter. The remaining 10 percent of results were inconclusive.
snip...
There was renewed interest in the Bixby letter after it was read in the 1998 film “Saving Private Ryan.” It also sparked a new round of debate centering on Lincoln’s authorship and the fate of Bixby’s sons. Evidence indicates two of Bixby’s sons died, a third was a deserter and a fourth ended up in a prisoner-of-war camp, the Associated Press reported in 2008. A fifth is believed to have received a discharge, but his fate is unknown.