Dear Madam:
I have seen a report submitted to the War Department at the request of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, and learned that you are the mother of five brothers who gave their lives gloriously on the battlefield. I know full well that no words can ease the grief such an immense loss has brought you, yet I cannot restrain myself. I wish to offer you my heartfelt condolences, as well as the gratitude of the country for which they gave their lives. I pray that God may soothe the sorrow of losing your beloved sons, leaving in your heart precious memories of those heroes and the sacred pride you so rightly deserve for your devotion to freedom. Most sincerely yours: Abraham Lincoln
Before the invention of the typewriter, people wrote letters by hand. Abraham Lincoln's letter to the mother of the five brothers had also been handwritten.
How could the lofty President of America speak to a housewife in such a humble tone?
This mother had lost five sons. She should have been able to spend her old age surrounded by countless descendants, but because of the war, she might have become utterly alone. Her sons had served the country—why couldn't the president give her an explanation?
Being left without heirs was a severe curse. Swiss banks had seized the money of Jews who had been left without heirs during World War II.
Goblins also wanted to swallow the money of pure-blood families left without heirs. Wizards had always struggled to reproduce, and even a family as flourishing as the Black family had now lost its direct male line.
Heirs were important. It was precisely to ensure enough descendants against unforeseen circumstances that ancient China practiced a system of one wife and multiple concubines.
And it was precisely