Abraham Lincoln's letter to Mrs. Lydia Bixby is one of the most controversial documents in the Lincoln canon.  Although no original is known to exist, the letter was written on November 21, 1864, and delivered to Mrs. Bixby on November 24 by William Schouler, the adjutant general of Massachusetts.  The text of the letter was published in the Boston Transcript on November 25, 1864.

    Later reproductions of the letter seem to have been made from tracings of Lincoln handwriting in other documents, and the reproductions were sold and distributed widely.

For more information, see Michael Burlingame, "New Light on the Bixby Letter," Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 16 (Winter 1995): 59-72; F. Lauriston Bullard, Abraham Lincoln and the Widow Bixby (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1946).