“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,”
Learn more about Lyric Fest by clicking on the image.
Lyric Fest has commissioned a new song setting of a letter by Abraham Lincoln to the mother of sons killed during the American Civil War which will be premiered first at Haverford College, then at the Academy of Vocal Arts, in Philadelphia.
“The Bixby letter is a letter sent from president Abraham Lincoln to a mother of five sons who were thought to have died while fighting for the Union in the American Civil War consoling message was written in November 1864 to Lydia Bixby, a widow living in Boston. The text has been widely praised as one of Lincoln’s finest written works.”