Category: Uncategorized

Lost Letters Confirm Friendship

On April 15, 2021, the 156th anniversary of the assassination of President Lincoln, I shared before fellow Arts Club of Washington members and friends, the life story of my great, great grandmother, Elizabeth Dixon, the woman depicted in deathbed paintings, (shown above) who comforted Mrs. Lincoln throughout the tragic night at the Petersen House and was among the few who witnessed President Lincoln’s death.

Up until now, history had erased any trace of the Civil War friendship shared by the Lincolns and Elizabeth Dixon. Recently, I discovered a lost trove of family papers, writings and friendship keepsakes that confirmed her friendship with the Lincolns from their first days in Washington until their last.

Each artifact and page provided a new detail that verified the sweet friendship shared with the Lincolns, and four generations later, shared her life story and a glimpse into the lives of the Lincolns from a new vantage point.

Within the lines of one of these lost letters we confirm Mary Lincoln and Elizabeth Dixon’s close friendship;

October 1865 Letter from Mary Lincoln to Elizabeth L. C. Dixon

My saddened memory often recalls you to mind and your gentleness and tender sympathy. It could never be forgotten in the middle of my grief, on that terrible night, which has left me so desolate and brokenhearted, it has often struck me as strange yet. Not so that even whilst I was so wild in my despair, when Robert said to me mother, what ladies shall I go. I immediately exclaimed Mrs. Dixon and Mrs. Kinney! The scenes we then passed through are continually present with me and will ever bow my head in sorrow and in vain regret.

To watch the April 15, 2021 program on YouTube:

Lincoln Masterpiece in Connecticut

Oldest Public Art Museum in the United States

During a trip back to Hartford Connecticut I scheduled a visit to the Wadsworth Atheneum to see President Lincoln’s famous letter he wrote to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862.

Within this vault is President Lincoln’s famous letter to Horace Greeley

Inside the vault is the safe with the famous letter, the administrator was on vacation, the summer staff struggled and took 45 minutes to open

Seeing the masterpiece: The Greeley Letter

Words from this letter are etched in American History;

My paramount object is to save the Union and is not either to save or destroy slavery…

The historian Phillip Shaw Paludan wrote about the importance of the letter;

 If there is one document that is more often quoted than any other in the argument, debate, or conversation about Lincoln it is the letter that Lincoln wrote on August 22, 1862 to Horace Greeley.

On Friday, August 22,1862 Lincoln sent his famous Greeley letter not to Horace Greeley but a rival editor, Dr. James Clarke Welling, the managing editor of the National Intelligencer who published the letter the following day.

During the Civil War, and early in the war Dr. Welling often advised President Lincoln and his Cabinet members.

Dr. James Clarke Welling, retained the original letter his entire life. In 1880, Welling wrote the Emancipation Proclamation in North American Review stating: 

 This letter appeared for the first time in the National Intelligencer on August 23, 1862 and the letter came into my hands from the fact I was one of the editors.

In his 1880 article Dr. James Clarke Welling included a facsimile of the letter ‘for editorial curiosity’.  

Why is this American treasure at the Wadsworth Atheneum ? Why was I allowed to handle the original?

In 1923, almost 100 years ago, my family donated the Greeley Letter to the Wadsworth Atheneum. It is the oldest art museum in the country.

It was the wish of our great grandfather, Dr. James Clarke Welling that the Greeley Letter be placed in a public museum preserved for others in the future.

He believed the Greeley Letter was an American masterpiece. Since it’s inception in the 1840s, the Wadsworth Atheneum has served the community as both public art museum, historical society and public library. There the letter resides in perpetuity.

I am honored to hold this American masterpiece