Abraham Lincoln News: Copy Of Famed Lincoln Letter Turns Up In Dallas

It has been a few days since last posting as thankfully we have been very busy at the Coral Ridge Mall. People took advantage of the cold weather to come out and shop heavily Friday, Saturday, and to a lesser extent Sunday, but all in all it was a very good weekend!! Thank you to the patriotic shoppers who made the effort to pull the retail sales out of the doldrums:)
I see there have been many bad stories out there, from the wildfires in California, to the taking of another ship by Somali pirates, but I found this "cool" story at Yahoo News this morning, and beings I am a huge fan of Abraham Lincoln wanted this to be the first post of the week!!

A Texas museum hopes a document found in its archives turns out to be an authentic government copy of Abraham Lincoln's eloquent letter consoling a mother thought to have lost five sons in the Civil War. The famed Bixby Letter, which the Dallas Historical Society is getting appraised as it prays for a potential windfall, has a fascinating history. The original has never been found. Historians debate whether Lincoln wrote it. Its recipient, Lydia Bixby, was no fan of the president. And not all her sons died in the war.

The letter, written with "the best of intentions" 144 years ago next week, is "considered one of the finest pieces of American presidential prose," said Alan Olson, curator for the Dallas group. "It's still a great piece of writing, regardless of the truth in the back story." Historians say Lincoln wrote the letter at the request of a Massachusetts official, who passed along news of a Boston woman grieving the loss of her five sons. The letter is addressed to "Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Mass." and begins with an acknowledgment that nothing written could possibly make a grief-stricken mother feel better about such a horrific loss.
"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," Lincoln wrote. After thanking Bixby on behalf of a grateful nation, Lincoln wrote that he would pray that God relieve her anguish and leave her with only the "cherished memory of the loved" along with "the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." The letter, as was the president's custom in his personal correspondence, is signed "A Lincoln."
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