6/24/2023 0 Comments Addressing an envelope to a widow![]() ![]() Bixby – Company D, 20th Massachusetts Infantry (served J– May 3, 1863). Born July 13, 1843, in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. Trying to secure a discharge for him, his mother filed an affidavit on October 17, 1862, which claimed Edward had enlisted underage without her permission. Private Arthur Edward Bixby (known as "Edward") – Company C, 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery (enlisted June 24, 1861).Nevertheless, at least two of Lydia Bixby's sons survived the war: Military record of the Bixby sons īixby's 1862 affidavit attempting to secure a discharge for son Edward The letter from the President arrived at Schouler's office the next morning. Schouler had some of the donations given to Bixby and then visited her home on Thanksgiving, November 24. On November 21, both the Boston Evening Traveller and the Boston Evening Transcript published an appeal by Schouler for contributions to assist soldiers' families at Thanksgiving which mentioned a widow who had lost five sons in the war. He sent a report to the War Department on October 12, which was delivered to President Lincoln by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton sometime after October 28. In response to a War Department request of October 1, Schouler sent a messenger to Bixby's home six days later, asking for the names and units of her sons. War Department with a note requesting that the president honor Bixby with a letter. Governor Andrew forwarded Newhall's request to the U.S. About ten days earlier, Bixby had come to Schouler's office claiming that five of her sons had died fighting for the Union. In the letter, Schouler recalled how, two years prior, they had helped a poor widow named Lydia Bixby to visit a son who was a patient at an Army hospital. On September 24, 1864, Massachusetts Adjutant General William Schouler wrote to Massachusetts Governor John Albion Andrew about a discharge request sent to the governor by Otis Newhall, the father of five Union soldiers. Some time before the Civil War, Bixby and her family settled in Boston. ![]() The couple had at least six sons and three daughters before Cromwell's death in 1854. Lydia Parker married shoemaker Cromwell Bixby on September 26, 1826, in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. William Schouler, Massachusetts Adjutant General 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. ![]() 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 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. 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. The following is the text of the letter as first published: President Lincoln's letter of condolence was delivered to Lydia Bixby on November 25, 1864, and was printed in the Boston Evening Transcript and Boston Evening Traveller that afternoon. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |