Abraham Lincoln''s letter to Mrs. Bixby, while a real document, was inaccurate when written. Only two of her sons died: Sgt. Charles Bixby at the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862 and Pvt. Charles Bixby at Petersburg, Virginia, the following year. Two more sons, Pvts. George and Edward Bixby, both deserted, and the remaining son, Cpl. Henry Bixby, was captured and later swapped in a prisoner exchange. In fact, Mrs. Bixby - a Confederate sympathizer who operated a brothel - had lied to the War Department about the number of sons she'd lost. Moreover, according to the Abraham Lincoln Association, the letter itself wasn't even written by Lincoln but by one of his secretaries, John Hay. Brown University houses Hay's scrapbook of newspaper clippings which featured his writings. The Mrs. Bixby letter, publicly credited to Lincoln, is among them. One of the words in the letter, "beguiled", was helpful in showing that it wasn't Lincoln who wrote the letter. A database of Lincoln speeches/writings revealed the only instance in which he uses the word "beguiled" is in the Bixby letter. Hay, however, is documented to have used it at least a dozen different times in his letters, writings and speeches.
