Executive Mansion,
Washington, December
23, 1862.
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.
Please present my kind regards to your afflicted mother.
Your sincere friend
A. LINCOLN.
Miss. Fanny McCullough.
SOURCE: Roy P. Basler, Editor, The Collected Works of Abraham
Lincoln, Vol. 6, p. 16-7;
