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The letter Lincoln may or may not have written to a woman who may or may not have lost her sons in the Civil War
Last night, KXAS-Channel 5 ran a short piece about the Dallas Historical Society‘s big find in its archives at Fair Park: a condolence letter from Abraham Lincoln to Lydia Bixby, whose five sons were killed in the Civil War. The DHS is going to try to auction it off through Christie’s and hopes to get big bucks for the missive. Only, one thing wasn’t mentioned in the piece: The so-called Bixby Letter is among the most contested documents in history, with many researchers believing it was written by Lincoln’s personal secretary, John Hay. Or maybe not.
Perhaps DHS does in fact have the “one exact copy of the ‘actual’ Bixby letter allegedly penned by Lincoln, which is believed to be in existence today,” as TruTV put it in its lengthy piece on the subject. Or perhaps it’s a copy of a forgery. Either way, Lincoln historians will no doubt follow the story closely. The Channel 5 piece is after the jump — and you know it’s serious, because my old friend and Alex Spence Middle School classmate Brendan Higgins starts rubbing his chin. –Robert Wilonsky
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