Executive Mansion
Washington, Novembar 21, 1864

Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts
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 words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to 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 solumn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice on the altar of freedom.
Yours very sincerely and respectfully,
Abraham Lincoln

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Lincoln had a style of writing which I commonly

refer to as simplistic elequence. He always remembered who he was speaking to, the common man, and used the power of phrase, not word when

speaking or writing.