The Quotable Rhett Butler: Mrs. Bixby and Her Sons

This week, our Quotable Rhett Butler features the entry that originally gave me the idea for the series. Another line that I ignored for a long time, I actually remember the moment I googled for this one, and my slight dismay at finding it historically inaccurate.  Here it is:

"'Mr. Lincoln, the merciful and just, who cries large tears over Mrs. Bixby's five boys, hasn't any tears to shed about the thousands of Yankees dying at Andersonville,' said Rhett, his mouth twisting."

--Gone with the Wind, Chapter XVI 

You can find this line at the end of Part Two in the book, when Rhett brings Melanie news about her missing husband. There are two main things to address in the quote above (besides the obvious anti-Lincoln feeling, of course).  

First of all, the allusion to the Bixby letter. Lydia Bixby was a widow from Boston who had allegedly lost her five sons in the Civil War (it will turn out three of them actually survived). At the urge of the Massachusetts governor, Lincoln sent her a condolence letter. Four days later, the letter would be published by The Boston Evening Transcript and become quite  famous. Here's what it said:

Executive Mansion,
Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.

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 word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering 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 altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,
A. Lincoln

From The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln

Can you see the problem there? November 1864. At the time this letter was written, Rhett was fighting in the Confederate Army and Scarlett starving at Tara. When Rhett utters this line, in April of 1864 most probably, only one of the Bixby sons was missing from the Union army--because he deserted.

The second interesting aspect of this quote is the reference to the prisoner exchange system or, rather, lack thereof.  Rhett is explaining to Melanie why her husband can't be exchanged out of prison and the blame for that fact is placed squarely on Lincoln. (An interesting tidbit: when that system was still working, Ashley, as a major, would have been worth eight privates. Ashley, worth eight men, I lived to see that day. I've yet to figure out what the status of blockade runners was.)
 

The prisoner exchange system between the Union and the Confederacy had collapsed in the summer of 1863, and though it was indeed suspended by the Lincoln administration, the Confederacy was largely to blame. The South would not recognize black Union soldiers as free men, and acted accordingly. They were sent back into slavery, which for the North was a clear violation of the initial deal. The exchange system was never reestablished, which, as the war progressed, proved to be to the Union's advantage, as the need for new troops was far greater in the South. 

The results of this were horrible--there is no other word no describe them. We will cover the Rock Island Prison in a post soon enough. In the meantime, you can google for the famous Andersonville Prison that Rhett refers to, but we must warn you, just in case you haven't seen them before, that the images are extremely unsettling.