PROCLAMATION CONCERNING BLOCKADE, NOVEMBER 19, 1864

By the president of the united states of America: 

A Proclamation.

Whereas by my proclamation of the 19th of April, 1861, it was declared that the ports of certain States, including those of Norfolk, in the State of Virginia, Fernandina and Pensacola, in the State of Florida, were, for reasons therein set forth, intended to be placed under blockade; and: 

Whereas the said ports were subsequently blockaded accordingly, but having for some time past been in the military possession of the United States, it is deeemd advisable that they should be opened to domestic and foreign commerce: 

Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, pursuant to the authority in me vested by the fifth section of the act of Congress approved on the 13th of July, 1861, entitled “An act further to provide for the collection of duties on imports, and for other purposes,” do hereby declare that the blockade of the said ports of Norfolk, Fernandina, and Pensacola shall so far cease and determine, from and after the first day of December next, that commercial intercourse with those ports, except as to persons, things, and information contraband of war, may, from that time, be carried on, subject to the laws of the United States, to the limitations and in pursuance of the regulations which may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Treasury, and to such military and naval regulations as are now in force, or may hereafter be found necessary.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.  Done at the city of Washington, this nineteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-ninth.

Abraham Lincoln.

By the President: 
William H. Seward, Secretary of State.

FIVE-STAR MOTHER

To Mrs. Bixby.

Executive Mansion, Washington,
November 21, 1864.

Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts.

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