Author: Helen NicolayPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biographers
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
Donated by Harry Wood, not Miller (jh).
Lincoln's Secretary, a Biography of John G. Nicolay
Author: Helen NicolayPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biographers
Languages : en
Pages : 400
Book Description
Donated by Harry Wood, not Miller (jh).
Abraham Lincoln
Author: Michael BurlingamePublisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 9780809327386
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
Editor Michael Burlingame sifted through the the ten-volume biography Abraham Lincoln: A History and selected only the personal observations of the secretaries during the Lincoln presidency. The result is an important collection of Nicolay and Hay's interpretations of Lincoln's character, actions, and reputation.
An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln
Author: Michael BurlingamePublisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809388146
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 193
Book Description
John C. Nicolay, who had known Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois, served as chief White House secretary from 1861 to 1865. Trained as a journalist, Nicolay had hoped to write a campaign biography of Lincoln in 1860, a desire that was thwarted when an obscure young writer named William Dean Howells got the job. Years later, however, Nicolay fulfilled his ambition; with John Hay, he spent the years from 1872 to 1890 writing a monumental ten-volume biography of Lincoln. In preparation for this task, Nicolay interviewed men who had known Lincoln both during his years in Springfield and later when he became the president of the United States. "When it came time to write their massive biography, however," Burlingame notes, "he and Hay made sparing use of the interviews" because they had become "skeptical about human memory." Nicolay and Hay also feared that Robert Todd Lincoln might censor material that reflected "poorly on Lincoln or his wife." Nicolay had interviewed such Springfield friends as Lincoln’s first two law partners, John Todd Stuart and Stephen T. Logan. At the Illinois capital in June and July 1875, he talked to a number of others including Orville H. Browning, U.S. senator and Lincoln’s close friend and adviser for over thirty-five years, and Ozias M. Hatch, Lincoln’s political ally and Springfield neighbor. Four years later he returned briefly and spoke with John W. Bunn, a young political "insider" from Springfield at the time Lincoln was elected president, and once again with Hatch. Browning shed new light on Lincoln’s courtship and marriage, telling Nicolay that Lincoln often told him "that he was constantly under great apprehension lest his wife should do something which would bring him into disgrace" while in the White House. During their research, Nicolay and Hay also learned of Lincoln’s despondency and erratic behavior following his rejection by Matilda Edwards, and they were subsequently criticized by friends for suppressing the information. Burlingame argues that this open discussion of Lincoln’s depression of January 1841 is "perhaps the most startling new information in the Springfield interviews." Briefer and more narrowly focused than the Springfield interviews, the Washington interviews deal with the formation of Lincoln’s cabinet, his relations with Congress, his behavior during the war, his humor, and his grief. In a reminiscence by Robert Todd Lincoln, for example, we learn of Lincoln’s despair at General Lee's escape after the Battle of Gettysburg: "I went into my father’s office ... and found him in [much] distress, his head leaning upon the desk in front of him, and when he raised his head there were evidences of tears upon his face. Upon my asking the cause of his distress he told me that he had just received the information that Gen. Lee had succeeded in escaping across the Potomac river. . ." To supplement these interviews, Burlingame has included Nicolay’s unpublished essays on Lincoln during the 1860 campaign and on Lincoln’s journey from Springfield to Washington in 1861, essay’s based on firsthand testimony.
Lincoln's Boys
Author: Joshua ZeitzPublisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101638079
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 402
Book Description
From the author of the forthcoming Building the Great Society (February 2018), an intimate look into Lincoln’s White House and the aftermath of his death, via the lives of his two closest aides In this timely look into Abraham Lincoln’s White House, and the aftermath of his death, noted historian and political advisor Joshua Zeitz presents a fresh perspective on the sixteenth U.S. president—as seen through the eyes of Lincoln’s two closest aides and confidants, John Hay and John Nicolay. Lincoln’s official secretaries, Hay and Nicolay enjoyed more access, witnessed more history, and knew Lincoln better than anyone outside of the president’s immediate family. They were the gatekeepers of Lincoln’s legacy. Drawing on letters, diaries, and memoirs, Lincoln’s Boys is part political drama and part coming-of-age tale—a fascinating story of friendship, politics, war, and the contest over history and remembrance.
Abraham Lincoln; a History, by John G. Nicolay and John Hay
Author: John George NicolayPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : United States
Languages : en
Pages : 544
Book Description
A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln
Author: John George NicolayPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Presidents
Languages : en
Pages : 604
Book Description
Lincoln's White House Secretary
Author: Harold HolzerPublisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 9780809327539
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 438
Book Description
William Osborn Stoddard, Lincoln’s “third secretary” who worked alongside John G. Nicolay and John Hay in the White House from 1861 to 1865, completed his autobiography in 1907, one of more than one hundred books he wrote. An abridged version was published by his son in 1955 as “Lincoln’s Third Secretary: The Memoirs of William O. Stoddard.” In this new, edited version, Lincoln’s White House Secretary: The Adventurous Life of William O. Stoddard, Harold Holzer provides an introduction, afterword, and annotations and includes comments by Stoddard’s granddaughter, Eleanor Stoddard. The elegantly written volume gives readers a window into the politics, life, and culture of the mid-nineteenth century. Stoddard’s bracing writing, eye for detail, and ear for conversation bring a novelistic excitement to a story of childhood observations, young friendships, hardscrabble frontier farming, early hints of the slavery crisis, the workings of the Lincoln administration, and the strange course of war and reunion in the southwest. More than a clerk, Stoddard was an adventurous explorer of American life, a farmer, editor, soldier, and politician. Enhanced by seventeen illustrations, this narrative sympathetically draws the reader into the life and times of Lincoln’s third secretary, adding to our understanding of the events and the larger-than-life figures that shaped history.
All the Great Prizes
Author: John TaliaferroPublisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416597417
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 688
Book Description
The first full-scale biography of John Hay since 1934: From secretary to Abraham Lincoln to secretary of state for Theodore Roosevelt, Hay was an essential American figure for more than half a century. John Taliaferro’s brilliant biography captures the extraordinary life of Hay, one of the most amazing figures in American history, and restores him to his rightful place. Private secretary to Lincoln and secretary of state to Theodore Roosevelt, Hay was both witness and author of many of the most significant chapters in American history—from the birth of the Republican Party, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, to the prelude to World War I. As an ambassador and statesman, he guided many of the country’s major diplomatic initiatives at the turn of the twentieth century: the Open Door with China, the creation of the Panama Canal, and the establishment of America as a world leader. Hay’s friends are a who’s who of the era: Mark Twain, Horace Greeley, Henry Adams, Henry James, and virtually every president, sovereign, author, artist, power broker, and robber baron of the Gilded Age. His peers esteemed him as “a perfectly cut stone” and “the greatest prime minister this republic has ever known.” But for all his poise and polish, he had his secrets. His marriage to one of the wealthiest women in the country did not prevent him from pursuing the Madame X of Washington society, whose other secret suitor was Hay’s best friend, Henry Adams. All the Great Prizes, the first authoritative biography of Hay in eighty years, renders a rich and fascinating portrait of this brilliant American and his many worlds.
With Lincoln in the White House
Author: Michael BurlingamePublisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809388235
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 301
Book Description
From the time of Lincoln’s nomination for the presidency until his assassination, John G. Nicolay served as the Civil War president’s chief personal secretary. Nicolay became an intimate of Lincoln and probably knew him as well as anyone outside his own family. Unlike John Hay, his subordinate, Nicolay kept no diary, but he did write several memoranda recording his chief’s conversation that shed direct light on Lincoln. In his many letters to Hay, to his fiancée, Therena Bates, and to others, Nicolay often describes the mood at the White House as well as events there. He also expresses opinions that were almost certainly shaped by the president For this volume, Michael Burlingame includes all of Nicolay’s memoranda of conversations, all of the journal entries describing Lincoln’s activities, and excerpts from most of the nearly three hundred letters Nicolay wrote to Therena Bates between 1860 and 1865. He includes letters and portions of letters that describe Lincoln or the mood at the White House or that give Nicolay’s personal opinions. He also includes letters written by Nicolay while on troubleshooting missions for the president. An impoverished youth, Nicolay was an unlikely candidate for the important position he held during the Civil War. It was only over the strong objections of some powerful people that he became Lincoln’s private secretary after Lincoln’s nomination for the presidency in 1860. Prominent Chicago Republican Herman Kreismann found the appointment of a man so lacking in savoir faire “ridiculous.” Henry Martin Smith, city editor of the Chicago Tribune, called Nicolay’s appointment a national loss. Henry C.Whitney was surprised that the president would appoint a “nobody.” Lacking charm, Nicolay became known at the White House as the “bulldog in the ante-room” with a disposition “sour and crusty.” California journalist Noah Brooks deemed Nicolay a “grim Cerberus of Teutonic descent who guards the last door which opens into the awful presence.” Yet in some ways he was perfectly suited for the difficult job. William O. Stoddard, noting that Nicolay was not popular and could “say 'no'about as disagreeably as any man I ever knew,” still granted that Nicolay served Lincoln well because he was devoted and incorruptible. Stoddard concluded that Nicolay “deserves the thanks of all who loved Mr. Lincoln.” For his part, Nicolay said he derived his greatest satisfaction “from having enjoyed the privilege and honor of being Mr. Lincoln’s intimate and official private secretary, and of earning his cordial friendship and perfect trust.”
Inside the White House in War Times
Author: William Osborn StoddardPublisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803292574
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 212
Book Description
Of the three secretaries who assisted President Abraham Lincoln?John G. Nicolay, John Hay, and William O. Stoddard?only Stoddard wrote an extended memoir about his time in the Executive Mansion. First published in 1890, the book vividly depicts the president?s agonizing reaction to the defeats at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the difficulties encountered (and presented) by Mary Lincoln, the president?s relations with George B. McClellan and other generals, and the anxiety preceding the Merrimack?s epic battle with the Monitor. ø In 1866 Stoddard also penned thirteen ?White House Sketches? about his time in Lincoln?s service. Originally published in an obscure New York newspaper, these essays?never previously collected?supplement Stoddard?s memoir. Together the memoir and sketches provide an intimate look at the sixteenth president during a time of crisis.