John Milton Hay
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Abraham Lincoln's private secretary and the man who is actually thought to have written
"Lincoln's" famous letter to Mrs. Lydia Bixby.
1838-1905
John Milton Hay was born in Salem, Indiana, the son of a physician who schooled him Greek and Latin. Hay spent most of his youth in Warsaw, Illinois, attended Illinois State University (later Concordia College) and received a master's degree from Brown University in 1858.
Hay began the practice of law with an uncle in Springfield, Illinois, where he became acquainted with Abraham Lincoln. In 1861, he was appointed a private secretary of Lincoln, along with John Nicolay; both assiduously collected items of historical merit that would later serve as the basis of a biography of the president.
Following the war, Hay served in a variety of diplomatic posts in France, Austria and Spain. In 1870, he turned his attention to journalism and served on the editorial board of the New York Tribune. The following year, he published the highly popular Pike County Ballads, a series of poems written in backcountry dialect.
After marrying a wealthy woman, Hay was free to write, travel widely and accept government positions that appealed to him.
He served as an assistant secretary of state during the Hayes administration and became an intimate of Henry Adams during these years.
In 1890, the first of 10 volumes of Abraham Lincoln: A History was published in conjunction with Nicolay, a work highly regarded to this day.
During the Spanish-American War, Hay served the McKinley administration as ambassador to Britain; he continued his service under Teddy Roosevelt. In his early years, he made major contributions by forging an "Open Door" policy with China, advancing American interests during the Boxer Rebellion and negotiating the Hay- Pauncefote Treaty.
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THE BIXBY 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
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The truth behind Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Bixby . . .
In the fall of 1864, Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew wrote to President Lincoln asking him to express condolences to Mrs. Lydia Bixby, a widow who was believed to have lost five sons in the Civil War. Lincoln's letter to her was printed by the Boston Evening Transcript. Later it was revealed that only two of Mrs. Bixby's five sons died in battle (Charles and Oliver). One deserted the army, one was honorably discharged, and another deserted or died a prisoner of war.
The authorship of the letter has been debated by scholars, most
of whom now believe it was written instead by John Hay, one of
Lincoln's White House secretaries. The original letter was
destoyed by Mrs. Bixby, who was a Confederate sympathizer and
disliked President Lincoln. Copies of an early forgery have been
circulating for years but are not genuine.
In the movie "Saving Private Ryan", the actor playing George C.
Marshall reads this letter aloud as part of his explaination for
why he would send a patrol out to find Ryan and return him to
the States after learning that his three brothers had already
been killed in action. Perhaps Spielberg wasn't aware of the
truth behind the letter.
