Charles IV and His Family, by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, 1800. Prado Museum, Madrid.
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President Abraham Lincoln on November 21, 1864, sent a letter to Mrs. Bixby, who, the War Department informed him, had lost five sons fighting for the Union. “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.” In fact, two of Mrs. Bixby’s sons were killed in action, a third either deserted or died while a prisoner of war, a fourth was honorably discharged, and the fifth deserted.
There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
—Michel de Montaigne, 1580
