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A Century-Old Abraham Lincoln Mystery May Finally Have an Answer

In November of 1864, a woman named Lydia Bixby received a letter from President Abraham Lincoln. He had been told that she had lost five sons to the then-ongoing Civil War. A Massachusetts state official had, learning of her plight, passed along her story. His request eventually made it to the White House.

Though Bixby's original copy of the letter was quickly destroyed or lost, the state official had also shared the text with the Boston Evening Telegraph, which published it.

"I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement," the letter noted, "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." ...

Now, a team of forensic linguistics researchers think they have arrived at an answer once and for all. In a paper submitted to the journal Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, which will be presented at a linguistics conference that begins next week, they explain why they believe that the numbers show that the letter was written by Hay. ...

Read entire article at Time Magazine