Here is a letter written by Abraham Lincoln to Mrs. Bixby, of Boston, Massachusetts, which is declared to be the most perfect piece of composition ever penned.
It is dated from the Executive Mansion, November twenty first, Eighteen Hundred Sixty-four;

Dear Madam; I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the
Adjutant-General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died
gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any attempt to beguile you
from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.
But I can not refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of
the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of
your bereavement, 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 alter of freedom.

Yours very sincerely and respectfully, Abraham Lincoln.