Talk:Bixby letter

Deacon John Phillips letter

Should the article mention the letter to John Phillips, a 104 year old deacon who voted for Lincoln, written on the same day as the Bixby letter? In his 1995 article, historian Michael Burlingame uses the Phillips letter's inclusion in a scrap book belonging to John Hay, along with the Bixby letter, as strong evidence that Hay wrote the Bixby letter. (Newspaper clippings of both letters, along with a clipping a Lincoln speech, are on the same page of one the scrapbooks, see here.) A draft copy of the Phillips letter survives in the Nicolay papers at Library of Congress (a transcript of the draft can be read here), so Lincoln didn't compose the Phillips letter. The draft letter said "you bore so honored a part" instead of "you acted so honorable a part" in the letter actually sent (as seen in the image), so Lincoln revised the Phillips letter as he wrote it out in his own hand. The addressee "Deacon John Phillips" on the lower left is also missing from the draft copy. There is no surviving draft copy of the Bixby letter.

As for my opinion, I do think the article should mention the Phillips letter. But I'm really uncertain of how I would go about doing that, so I'd like to ask for other editors' opinions on how it should be worded before attempting any edits. Libertybison (talk) 23:52, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

"Mrs. George M. Towers"

During the GA review of this article (see here), the use of "Mrs. George M. Towers" for the name of Lydia Bixby's granddaughter was criticized but we had to use it because her name, Sylvia Elizabeth Towers, did not appear in any credible sources without the resort to original research. Sometime after the GA review, a Find A Grave page was created for her, which can be seen here. There's a photo of the grave on the page, and the inscription on the gravestone goes by her middle name, Elizabeth. I think the inscription makes it reliable enough to call her "Elizabeth Towers" in the article. However, the user-generated content of Find A Grave isn't considered reliable. I wanted to see if other users were fine with this use of Find A Grave before making the change. Libertybison (talk) 00:55, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

I've provided similarly questionable citations that remain unchallenged simply because the information they support is so pedestrian and uncontroversial. John Foxe (talk) 17:47, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

I've made the change. It turns out I made a mistake during the GA review and the 1912 Bixby Genealogy book does indeed identify her as a granddaughter. A couple of footnotes for this Bixby family say Information of Mrs. S. Elizabeth Towers (11736.524). The number code the book uses identifies her as a granddaughter of Cromwell Bixby (given number 11736.5 in the book) by Cromwell's second child, Oliver, and she is Oliver's fourth child. I just didn't understand the reference. In 1912, she and her siblings may have been too close to the present to have their own entries in the genealogy. Libertybison (talk) 21:25, 26 November 2018 (UTC)

Good. Glad you caught that. John Foxe (talk) 00:27, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Bixby letter use in film

Wasn't the letter read by George C Scott in "Patton" at some point in the movie? 2601:240:8202:4F80:F1A6:1E6:30FF:6FA6 (talk) 03:55, 25 November 2023 (UTC)