The Final Letter

     I sometimes read, from time to time, Abraham Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Bixby of Boston. It is believed to be written after Mrs. Bixby lost five of her sons in battle during the civil war -- yes, five. You may remember it from the movie Saving Private Ryan. The actor playing General George Marshal pulls it out of his desk and reads it before issuing the command to go find Private Ryan. It is a short but beautiful condolence letter. The original was apparently destroyed, but likely copied and reprinted. Historians debate if Lincoln wrote it or if he delegated it to John Hay, one of his personal secretaries. Most agree that Lincoln probably wrote the letter.  In greatness, it follows the Gettysburg Address and his Second Inaugural.

Here it is:

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
    

     I also read, for the first time, FDR's letter to the mother and father of the Sullivan brothers. These were five brothers who all served on the light cruiser USS Juneau in the Pacific during WWII. A Japanese submarine sunk the cruiser, killing them all. I've never had to write a last letter. Thankfully. But reading these letters reminds me that thousands, yes, thousands of letters have been written in the past 10 years alone. I am amazed -- particularly with Lincoln -- that a man can write something so beautiful, so short and so concise, about something so devastating. 

  And this, the day after a fatal crash of a Navy jet outside of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Washington.  Three aviators lost their lives.  From the Navy Times: Lt. j.g. Valerie Delaney, 26, from Ellicott City, Md.; Lt. j.g. William McIlvaine, 24, from El Paso, Texas; and Lt. Cmdr. Alan Patterson, 34, from Tullahoma, Tenn., were killed when the Prowler crashed into a field around 50 miles west of Spokane, Wash., during a routine training mission.

Enter Lincoln.

"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."