Letter to Fanny McCullough

Lincoln would sometimes stay with the McCullough family when he reached the Bloomington, Illinois area of the circuit.

With the start of the Civil War, McCullough petitioned Lincoln to allow him to enlist despite his health problems and age.

[1] After McCullough was killed December 5, 1862 in an engagement near Coffeeville, Mississippi,[2] his daughter Mary Frances ("Fanny") was inconsolable and locked herself in her room.

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.

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.