THE PROPERTY OF
A TEXAS COLLECTOR
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, President. Autograph letter signed ("A. Lincoln"), as President, to Miss Fanny McCullough of Bloomington, Illinois; Washington, D.C., 23 December 1862. 1 full page, 4to, 250 x 201 mm. 9 13/16 x 7 7/8 in.), on Executive Mansion stationery, very minor separations at two vertical folds, extremely faint traces of mat-burn from a previous frame, otherwise in good condition. Letter and envelope (see below) neatly matted and preserved under plexiglas protective panels in an elaborate dark blue morocco clamshell case, the compartments gilt-ruled, covers with double gilt-ruled borders, upper cover with gilt-lettered quotation "THE MEMORY OF YOUR DEAR FATHER", brass latch at fore-edge, by The Lakeside Press, Chicago.
Details
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, President. Autograph letter signed ("A. Lincoln"), as President, to Miss Fanny McCullough of Bloomington, Illinois; Washington, D.C., 23 December 1862. 1 full page, 4to, 250 x 201 mm. 9 13/16 x 7 7/8 in.), on Executive Mansion stationery, very minor separations at two vertical folds, extremely faint traces of mat-burn from a previous frame, otherwise in good condition. Letter and envelope (see below) neatly matted and preserved under plexiglas protective panels in an elaborate dark blue morocco clamshell case, the compartments gilt-ruled, covers with double gilt-ruled borders, upper cover with gilt-lettered quotation "THE MEMORY OF YOUR DEAR FATHER", brass latch at fore-edge, by The Lakeside Press, Chicago.
[With:] LINCOLN. Autograph free frank signature ("A. Lincoln") as President, at top right-hand corner of the original envelope addressed in Lincoln's hand to "Miss Fanny McCullough Bloomington Illinois," an oblong, 87 x 157 mm. (2 3/8 x 6¼ in.).
LINCOLN'S FAMOUS CONDOLENCE LETTER TO FANNY MCCULLOUGH: "THE MEMORY OF YOUR DEAR FATHER, INSTEAD OF AN AGONY, WILL YET BE A SAD SWEET FEELING IN YOUR HEART, OF A PURER, AND HOLIER SORT THAN YOU HAVE KNOWN BEFORE"
One of Lincoln's most famous letters, frequently anthologized and "acknowledged to be one of the greatest letters of condolence ever written" (Mark Neely). To the bereaved young woman whose father had been killed in battle, Lincoln writes: "Dear Fanny, It is with deep grief that I learn of the death of your kind and brave Father; and, especially, that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common in such cases. In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once. The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer, and holier sort than you have known before." In closing, Lincoln adds: "Please present my kind regards to your afflicted Mother. Your sincere friend. A. Lincoln." Published in Collected Works, ed. R.P. Basler, 6:17.
The circumstances which prompted the writing of this exceptional letter are of considerable interest. Before the war William McCullough, Fanny's father, had been a clerk of the McLean County, Illinois, Circuit Court in Bloomington. He was well-known to Lincoln and to Lincoln's friend, later Supreme Court justice, David Davis. (One of Fanny's sisters was married to William W. Orme, a partner of Lincoln's friend William Swett; Orme rose to the rank of Brigadier General of volunteers). At the outbreak of the War, McCullough -- although he had lost his right arm and sight in one eye -- sought to enlist in the Union army, but was rejected on medical grounds. President Lincoln intervened, apparently, to secure a commission for his friend in spite of his disabilities, and McCullough was mustered into the 4th Illinois Cavalry. A natural leader, he was elected Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment, which was soon caught up in the bloody fighting at Forts Henry and Donelson, at Corinth and at the near-defeat at Shiloh. McCullough and the 4th Illinois Cavalry served with such distinction that in December, preparing to launch his campaign against Vicksburg, General Grant selected them for an important reconnaisance behind Confederate lines. By December 5, McCullough's band, forty miles behind rebel lines, began to encounter stiff resistance from Confederate patrols. McCullough ordered a retreat back to Union lines, but that evening the rearguard, including Col. McCullough, were caught in a Confederate ambush near Coffeyville, Mississippi. In the twilight, McCullough was shot and killed. His body was returned under a flag of truce six days later, returned to Illinois, and buried with full military honors in Bloomington on the 14th.
Lincoln certainly learned of McCullough's death in battle from David Davis, whom he had recently appointed to the Supreme Court. Davis in turn had heard the news from William Orme, Fanny's brother-in-law. On the 13th, Laura Swett wrote to David Davis in Washington, expressing fears "in behalf of Fanny McCullough -- afflicted, crushed, and I fear, broken-hearted...She has neither ate or slept since the tidings of her father's death, but shuts herself in her room, in solitude, where she passes her time in pacing the floor in violent grief, or sitting in lethargic silence." In reply, Davis regretted he was not in Bloomington, where "I could do much to soothe my poor friend, Fanny...She is a guiless, truthful, warm-hearted noble girl....Poor Fanny loved her father...I will see Mr. Lincoln again, and prompt him to write her -- He promised the other day that he would...The cares of this government are very heavy on him now, and unless prompted the matter may pass out of his mind..." To Leonard Swett on the 16th, he confirmed that "Mr. Lincoln had a warm attachment to McCullough and feels his loss keenly. He will write to Fanny..." To his wife on the 21st, Davis added that McCullough's death "saddens me greatly -- Mr. Lincoln feels badly about it, and will write Fanny in a few days..."
Two days before Christmas Lincoln interrupted his official duties to pen the present eloquent, carefully worded letter of sympathy to young Fanny. The letter, no doubt, owes much of its power and insight to Lincoln's own experience with bereavement. Only eight months previously, William Wallace Lincoln ("Willie"), his twelve-year-old son, had died of an unidentified fever. His death had had a great effect on both the President and Mary Lincoln. Fanny McCullough is likely to have received Lincoln's letter on or shortly after Christmas Day 1862. Four days later, on December 29, Lincoln would read the first draft of his Emancipation Proclamation to his surprised cabinet.
Lincoln wrote three famous letters of condolence. The first, to the parents of Elmer E. Ellsworth, killed early in the war, is presently in the Huntington Library. The second is the present letter to Fanny McCullough. Another, a letter to Mrs. Bixby of Boston, erroneously reported to have lost five sons in the war, survives only in published form and recent research indicates a likelihood that that letter was in fact written by John Hay, not Lincoln [see Michael Burlingame, "New Light on the Bixby Letter," Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, 16:1 (Winter 1995), pp.59-72].
Provenance:
1. The recipient, Miss Fanny McCullough, later Mrs. Frank D. Orme (d. 4 March 1920)
2. Alice Orme Smith, of Fairfield Connecticut, by descent (noted in Collected Works, 1953)
3. Carl Haverlin of New York (whose collection of Presidential manuscripts, not including the McCullough letter) was sold here on behalf of the BMI Foundation in May 1995 and May 1996). Haverlin owned had owned the letter from at least 1968, in which year he published a brief account of it with exceprts from the Davis papers and a Lakeside Press facsimile. According to Mark A. Neely, Haverlin had paid $60,000 for the letter, at that time, "the highest price ever paid for a Lincoln letter" (Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia, p.204).
4. The present owner, a private collector
[With:] LINCOLN. Autograph free frank signature ("A. Lincoln") as President, at top right-hand corner of the original envelope addressed in Lincoln's hand to "Miss Fanny McCullough Bloomington Illinois," an oblong, 87 x 157 mm. (2 3/8 x 6¼ in.).
LINCOLN'S FAMOUS CONDOLENCE LETTER TO FANNY MCCULLOUGH: "THE MEMORY OF YOUR DEAR FATHER, INSTEAD OF AN AGONY, WILL YET BE A SAD SWEET FEELING IN YOUR HEART, OF A PURER, AND HOLIER SORT THAN YOU HAVE KNOWN BEFORE"
One of Lincoln's most famous letters, frequently anthologized and "acknowledged to be one of the greatest letters of condolence ever written" (Mark Neely). To the bereaved young woman whose father had been killed in battle, Lincoln writes: "Dear Fanny, It is with deep grief that I learn of the death of your kind and brave Father; and, especially, that it is affecting your young heart beyond what is common in such cases. In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. I am anxious to afford some alleviation of your present distress. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You can not now realize that you will ever feel better. Is not this so? And yet it is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again. To know this, which is certainly true, will make you some less miserable now. I have had experience enough to know what I say; and you need only to believe it, to feel better at once. The memory of your dear Father, instead of an agony, will yet be a sad sweet feeling in your heart, of a purer, and holier sort than you have known before." In closing, Lincoln adds: "Please present my kind regards to your afflicted Mother. Your sincere friend. A. Lincoln." Published in Collected Works, ed. R.P. Basler, 6:17.
The circumstances which prompted the writing of this exceptional letter are of considerable interest. Before the war William McCullough, Fanny's father, had been a clerk of the McLean County, Illinois, Circuit Court in Bloomington. He was well-known to Lincoln and to Lincoln's friend, later Supreme Court justice, David Davis. (One of Fanny's sisters was married to William W. Orme, a partner of Lincoln's friend William Swett; Orme rose to the rank of Brigadier General of volunteers). At the outbreak of the War, McCullough -- although he had lost his right arm and sight in one eye -- sought to enlist in the Union army, but was rejected on medical grounds. President Lincoln intervened, apparently, to secure a commission for his friend in spite of his disabilities, and McCullough was mustered into the 4th Illinois Cavalry. A natural leader, he was elected Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment, which was soon caught up in the bloody fighting at Forts Henry and Donelson, at Corinth and at the near-defeat at Shiloh. McCullough and the 4th Illinois Cavalry served with such distinction that in December, preparing to launch his campaign against Vicksburg, General Grant selected them for an important reconnaisance behind Confederate lines. By December 5, McCullough's band, forty miles behind rebel lines, began to encounter stiff resistance from Confederate patrols. McCullough ordered a retreat back to Union lines, but that evening the rearguard, including Col. McCullough, were caught in a Confederate ambush near Coffeyville, Mississippi. In the twilight, McCullough was shot and killed. His body was returned under a flag of truce six days later, returned to Illinois, and buried with full military honors in Bloomington on the 14th.
Lincoln certainly learned of McCullough's death in battle from David Davis, whom he had recently appointed to the Supreme Court. Davis in turn had heard the news from William Orme, Fanny's brother-in-law. On the 13th, Laura Swett wrote to David Davis in Washington, expressing fears "in behalf of Fanny McCullough -- afflicted, crushed, and I fear, broken-hearted...She has neither ate or slept since the tidings of her father's death, but shuts herself in her room, in solitude, where she passes her time in pacing the floor in violent grief, or sitting in lethargic silence." In reply, Davis regretted he was not in Bloomington, where "I could do much to soothe my poor friend, Fanny...She is a guiless, truthful, warm-hearted noble girl....Poor Fanny loved her father...I will see Mr. Lincoln again, and prompt him to write her -- He promised the other day that he would...The cares of this government are very heavy on him now, and unless prompted the matter may pass out of his mind..." To Leonard Swett on the 16th, he confirmed that "Mr. Lincoln had a warm attachment to McCullough and feels his loss keenly. He will write to Fanny..." To his wife on the 21st, Davis added that McCullough's death "saddens me greatly -- Mr. Lincoln feels badly about it, and will write Fanny in a few days..."
Two days before Christmas Lincoln interrupted his official duties to pen the present eloquent, carefully worded letter of sympathy to young Fanny. The letter, no doubt, owes much of its power and insight to Lincoln's own experience with bereavement. Only eight months previously, William Wallace Lincoln ("Willie"), his twelve-year-old son, had died of an unidentified fever. His death had had a great effect on both the President and Mary Lincoln. Fanny McCullough is likely to have received Lincoln's letter on or shortly after Christmas Day 1862. Four days later, on December 29, Lincoln would read the first draft of his Emancipation Proclamation to his surprised cabinet.
Lincoln wrote three famous letters of condolence. The first, to the parents of Elmer E. Ellsworth, killed early in the war, is presently in the Huntington Library. The second is the present letter to Fanny McCullough. Another, a letter to Mrs. Bixby of Boston, erroneously reported to have lost five sons in the war, survives only in published form and recent research indicates a likelihood that that letter was in fact written by John Hay, not Lincoln [see Michael Burlingame, "New Light on the Bixby Letter," Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association, 16:1 (Winter 1995), pp.59-72].
Provenance:
1. The recipient, Miss Fanny McCullough, later Mrs. Frank D. Orme (d. 4 March 1920)
2. Alice Orme Smith, of Fairfield Connecticut, by descent (noted in Collected Works, 1953)
3. Carl Haverlin of New York (whose collection of Presidential manuscripts, not including the McCullough letter) was sold here on behalf of the BMI Foundation in May 1995 and May 1996). Haverlin owned had owned the letter from at least 1968, in which year he published a brief account of it with exceprts from the Davis papers and a Lakeside Press facsimile. According to Mark A. Neely, Haverlin had paid $60,000 for the letter, at that time, "the highest price ever paid for a Lincoln letter" (Abraham Lincoln Encyclopedia, p.204).
4. The present owner, a private collector