by Joshua Zeitz
Hay pleaded once again for concision: JH to JGN, April 22, 1885, reel 6, frames 925–27, JH-BU.
“you are giving yourself needless worry”: JGN to JH, April 26, 1885, reel 9, frames 828–30, JH-BU.
“We want your life of Lincoln”: Smith to JH, March 3, 1885, box 4, JGN-LC.
George Washington Cable: Caron, “‘How Changeable Are the Events of War,’” 153, 157–58, 164–65.
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: Ibid., 152, 156–57.
The Century’s editors: Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy, 69; Caron, “‘How Changeable Are the Events of War,’” 154–57; Blight, Race and Reunion, 173–81.
Gilder began courting: JH to JGN, April 26, 1874, reel 6, frame 381, JH-BU.
“Flattering as his suggestion is”: JGN to JH, Aug. 21, 1880, reel 9, frames 780–81, JH-BU.
“but they are not on a level”: JH to JGN, March 20, March 21, 1885, reel 6, frames 913, 915–16, JH-BU.
“The unprecedented success”: JH to JGN, March 2, 1885, reel 6, frames 912–13, JH-BU.
“get from them as much information”: JH to JGN, March 29, 1885, reel 6, frame 918, JH-BU.
“visibly interested”: JGN to JH, July 19, 1885, box 4, JGN-LC.
“The work will have a great”: Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, 117–19.
“the secret history”: Gilder to Edmund Gosse, Nov. 2, 1885, in Gilder, Letters of Richard Watson Gilder, 174–76.
“universal tone of respect”: Gilder to JGN, June 11, 1885, box 4, JGN-LC.
“the only authorized life”: Gilder to Edmund Gosse, Nov. 2, 1885, in Gilder, Letters of Richard Watson Gilder, 175.
“a simple truth of law”: JH to JGN, Aug. 10, 1885, reel 6, frame 944, JH-BU.
“look up the exact language”: JGN to Gilder, Aug. 5, 1885, box 4, JGN-LC.
“the weakness and defects”: N&H-AL, 5:97–102.
“hardly be objected to”: JGN to Gilder, Aug. 13, 1885, box 4, JGN-LC.
Hay rankled Southern sensibilities: JH to “Dear Sir,” April 22, 189?, reel 6, frame 1159, JH-BU.
“I am afraid that I have come”: JH to JGN, Aug. 10, 1885, reel 6, frames 941–46, JH-BU.
“If John Brown”: N&H-AL, 5:393–99.
“I believe I have adopted”: JGN to Gilder, Jan. ?, 1887, box 4, JGN-LC.
“grit to stand up against”: JGN to JH, Aug. 16, 1885, reel 9, frames 847–48, JH-BU.
“Lincoln’s fame”: Gilder to JGN, Jan. 2, 1890, box 4, JGN-LC.
“conscious of having written”: JGN to Gilder, Jan. 8, 1890 (unsent), box 4, JGN-LC.
“As to the possible accusations”: JGN to Gilder, Jan. 24, 1890, box 4, JGN-LC.
In its final form: JH to JGN, Aug. 10, 1885, reel 6, frames 941–46, JH-BU.
Chapter 16: We Are Lincoln Men All Through
baffled by its long digressions: Burlingame, “Nicolay and Hay,” 1.
Among its many famous contributions: N&H-AL, 7:87–88, 4:152–53, 466, 3:448.
In fifteen chapters: JH to JGN, Jan. 20, 1879, March 8, 1882, reel 6, frames 485, 811–13, JH-BU; JGN to JH, n.d. [ca. Nov. 1876], box 4, JGN-LC.
“We hold that your father”: JGN to RTL, July 17, 1874, box 4, JGN-LC.
“did not know”: N&H-AL, 3:443.
“the superior sagacity”: Ibid., 4:129, 139.
“almost a giant”: Ibid., 151.
“Of all these years”: Ibid., 1:26–27.
“The ‘barbarous neighborhood’”: Ibid., 16–19.
“sharp points and salient angles”: JH to Hannah Angell, Oct. 20, 1858, in CF, 33.
“beauty of our river society”: JH to JGN, Sept. 7, 1864, reel 5, frames 1508–10, JH-BU.
“In most respects there had been”: N&H-AL, 1:39–42.
“by the fire at night”: Ibid., 35–36.
“constitutional sadness”: Ibid., 189–90.
“we of the great West”: Herndon to Jesse Weik, Jan. 30, 1887, in WH, 163–65.
“made the acquaintance”: N&H-AL, 1:191–92.
“on the 4th of November”: Ibid., 186–202.
“if chance or fate”: Ibid., 3:208.
“were mostly a simple, neighborly”: Ibid., 1:51–52.
Campaigns of the Civil War: Charles Scribner’s Sons to JGN, July 17, 1880, box 4, JGN-LC.
“inexorable tyranny”: JGN, Outbreak of Rebellion, 3, 6, 9.
“I confess I learned”: JH to JGN, Aug. 10, 1885, reel 6, frames 941–46, JH-BU.
“The lion of the North”: N&H-AL, 4:85, 261.
“that persistent struggle”: Ibid., 1:315.
“The generation which fought”: Ibid., 3:199–200.
“spirit of bullying”: Ibid., 2:52, 3:32, 176.
“one of the many ‘relics of barbarism’”: Ibid., 3:314–15.
“an idle waste of labor”: Ibid., 1:72–73; Foner, Fiery Trial, 10–11.
“there was a long distance”: N&H-AL, 1:152–53.
“traffic in human beings”: Ibid., 285.
“the master’s right to slave property”: Ibid., 3:29.
“white men, after running”: JGN, 1858 Journal, box 1, JGN-LC.
“their birthright”: N&H-AL, 2:76–77.
“Conservative opinion”: Ibid., 6:96–97.
“on the kindred policy”: Ibid., 125.
“naturally antislavery”: Ibid., 430–31.
“those who were anxious to destroy”: Ibid., 148.
“Antislavery opinion in Congress”: Ibid., 106–7.
“Could antislavery people”: Ibid., 157.
“Practical trial”: Ibid., 469.
“Under the barbarous institution”: Ibid., 477.
“revolting crimes”: Ibid., 7:453–55.
“acquired much more”: Ibid., 4:389.
“stirring times”: JGN to TB, April 14, 1861, box 7, JGN-LC.
critical moment seems to have coincided: A ProQuest Historical Newspapers search of eleven newspapers, including the New York Times, New-York Tribune, and Chicago Tribune, produces 20 mentions of the Gettysburg Address between January 1864 and January 1891, and 575 mentions between January 1891 and January 1911.
stand-alone article: JGN, “Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.”
“privilege to witness”: JGN to Ezra M. Price, May 11, 1900, box 1, Scrapbook, JGN-LC.
in vain pursuit: Johnson, “Who Stole the Gettysburg Address?”
“for then and there”: N&H-AL, 8:199–202.
“all the particulars are in the daily papers”: Hay Diary, Nov. 19, 1863.
comte de Paris: Comte de Paris, History of the Civil War in America.
stilted version of events: George B. McClellan, McClellan’s Own Story.
“I think I have left the impression”: JH to JGN, Aug. 10, 1885, reel 6, frame 941, JH-BU. For background on Hay’s enmity for McClellan, see Monteiro, “John Hay and the Union Generals.”
“hallucinations of overwhelming forces”: N&H-AL, 4:449, 5:154–56, 364.
“mutinous insolence”: Ibid., 6:135–38, 147, 5:443.
“as far from being the traitor”: Ibid., 6:188–93.
“tough nut to crack”: JH to JGN, Aug. 10, Aug. 29, 1885, reel 6, frames 941–46, 958, JH-BU.
“Lincoln, Chase, and Seward”: N&H-AL, 6:224–25.
“Now I can ride”: Ibid., 254, 262, 265–71.
“daily and hourly”: Ibid., 4:367–68.
“it is safe to say”: Ibid., 6:114.
“larger comprehension”: Ibid., 5:151–52.
“control[led] the average public sentiment”: Ibid., 6:107.
“He was of the Immortals”: Mechlin, “Proposed Lincoln Memorial.”
Chapter 17
: Lincolniana
“Laws-a-mercy!”: JH to Henry Adams, Aug. 4, 1889, in JH-LL, 2:43.
“There will be ten volumes”: JH to RTL, April 22, Dec. 22, 1889, in JH-LL, 2:44–46.
“the truth before the country”: JH to RTL, Jan. 6, 1886, in Mearns, Lincoln Papers, 75.
A critic for Life: Burlingame, “Nicolay and Hay,” 1–2.
“damn partisan”: Helen Nicolay, Lincoln’s Secretary, 298.
“no one will suspect”: Gilder to JGN, March 30, 1887, box 4, JGN-LC.
“ponderous Republican history”: Burlingame, “Nicolay and Hay,” 2.
“The whole thing is growing”: JH to JGN, July 25, 1891, reel 6, frame 1233, JH-BU.
“never had two hours’ conversation”: Dennett, John Hay, 136.
“these gentlemen did not write history”: O’Toole, Five of Hearts, 226.
“one of the noblest achievements”: Harper’s Magazine, Feb. 1891, 479.
“much pleased”: Mearns, Lincoln Papers, 80.
“Many people speak to me”: Burlingame, “Nicolay and Hay,” 12.
seven thousand copies: Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, 126.
“risk we run”: Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, 312–13.
“most striking fact”: Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, 67–69; Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, 141.
“a place in which the present”: Mearns, Lincoln Papers, 86.
Ida Tarbell: Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, 149–55; Thomas, Portrait for Posterity, 178–202.
“Out of the pages”: Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, 275.
“I really deal too leniently”: Ibid., 307–8.
James Ford Rhodes: Stampp, “The Irrepressible Conflict,” in Imperiled Union, 191.
Edward Channing: Channing, United States of America, 1765–1865, ix–x.
Charles Beard: Stampp, “Irrepressible Conflict,” 193–94.
discontinuities associated with economic development: Novick, That Noble Dream, 92–100.
“worse than the fact itself”: Craven, Coming of the Civil War, 93; Stampp, “Irrepressible Conflict,” 199, 204–5; Novick, That Noble Dream, 237.
“blundering generation”: Randall, Civil War and Reconstruction, vii; Randall, “A Blundering Generation,” in Lincoln the Liberal Statesman, 49–52.
revised the history of Reconstruction: Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, 302; Foner, “New View of Reconstruction”; Weisberger, “Dark and Bloody Ground of Reconstruction Historiography.”
“essentially a Douglas Democrat”: Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, 308–10.
disillusionment with Reconstruction: Richardson, Death of Reconstruction; Foner, Reconstruction, chaps. 11–12.
strength from the academy: Fredrickson, Black Image in the White Mind, chaps. 8, 10; Sitkoff, New Deal for Blacks, 29–30.
millions of new immigrants: Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color.
confusion in the ranks: Hale, Making Whiteness, introd., chaps. 4, 5; Litwack, Trouble in Mind, chaps. 1, 6.
oppositional theories of political economy: Foner, Free Labor, Free Soil, Free Men; McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom.
“If he had died”: N&H-AL, 10:341.
“I know the people want him”: JH to JGN, Sept. 11, 1863, reel 5, frame 1448, JH-BU.
“among the common people”: N&H-AL, 10:344.
“Nothing would have more amazed him”: Ibid., 351–52.
“principally as a man of action”: Ibid., 352–53.
“a man, in fact”: Ibid., 346–47.
“fables”: Ibid., 347–48.
Chapter 18: The Fellows Who Came of Age in the Lincoln Years
upbringing along the Mississippi River: JH, “The Press and Modern Progress,” in Addresses of John Hay, 244–45.
“hid away from the hot weather”: JGN to Schuyler Colfax, Aug. 16, 1878, reel 9, frame 767, JH-BU.
“the family council”: JGN to JH, April 11, 1885, reel 9, frame 821, JH-BU.
“Mrs. Hay could scarcely have been comfortable”: Helen Nicolay, Lincoln’s Secretary, 339–40.
“Buffalo Bill speed”: Taliaferro, All the Great Prizes, 249, 257.
“You can appreciate my loss”: JGN to JH, Nov. 25, 1885, box 4, JGN-LC.
“For the present”: JGN to JH, Dec. 9, 1885, box 4, JGN-LC.
include her in their lives: JH to JGN, March 12, 1888, Nov. 10, 1892, reel 6, frames 1057–58, 1281–84; JH to JGN, Nov. 4, 1898, reel 7, frame 55, JH-BU.
“As I shall probably never”: JH to Helen Nicolay, Oct. 5, 1900, reel 7, frame 202, JH-BU.
“suited our needs perfectly”: Helen Nicolay, Lincoln’s Secretary, 340.
“dropped completely out of the present”: Ibid., 341.
“take most of it”: JH to JGN, Dec. 27, 1897, reel 6, frames 1537–40, JH-BU.
“was beloved by his countrymen”: A. A. Ward, G. W. Prothero, and Stanley Leathes, eds., The Cambridge Modern History (New York: Macmillan, 1903), 7:548.
“Of course I am proud”: JGN to Stoddard, Nov. 13, 1898, reel 9, frames 950–51, JH-BU.
“no words with which”: McKinley to JH, Feb. 26, 1893, reel 8, frame 1170, JH-BU.
1896 Republican convention: JH to Hanna, Dec. 20, 1895, reel 6, frames 1371–1374, JH-BU.
“I think you are as good”: Hanna to JH, Dec. 21, 1895, reel 5, frame 315, JH-BU.
“The Republican leaders treated Hay”: Adams, Education of Henry Adams, 323–24.
“The scale of expenditure”: Taliaferro, All the Great Prizes, 315–16.
“She was extremely gracious”: Ibid., 323–24.
“the most interesting”: JH-LL, 2:181.
“splendid little war”: JH to Roosevelt, July 27, 1898, in JH-LL, 2:337.
“We are sixty-five million”: George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 299.
“greatest destiny the world”: LaFeber, New Cambridge History of American Foreign Relations, 2:126.
parallel sense of dread: Bederman, Manliness and Civilization, 1–44; Kasson, Houdini, Tarzan, and the Perfect Man, 3–20.
“noisy nationalism”: George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 302.
“first-born son”: JH to Whitelaw Reid, Oct. 26, 1894, in Hay and Adams, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from His Diary, 2:337.
“I am sure that you and I”: JH to Reid, in JH-LL, 2:123.
prevailing spirit of jingoism: Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood, 36.
“knock on the head”: George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 302.
“I was a boy”: Lodge, “The Blue and the Gray,” in Speeches and Addresses, 1884–1909, 25–30.
“War is a bad thing”: George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 302.
“I shall never get into a war”: Richardson, West from Appomattox, 336.
Elmer Ellsworth: Goodheart, 1861, 280–91.
“I detest war”: JH to Theodore Stanton, May 8, 1898, in JH-LL, 2:168.
“prevent any talk of peace”: George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower, 318.
“educate the Filipinos”: Ibid., 332.
“The American people can never be made”: Lodge to JH, March 28, 1901, in JH-LL, 2:259–60.
“Et tu!”: JH to Roosevelt, Feb. 12, 1900, in JH-LL, 2:225.
“the action of the Senate”: JH to McKinley, March 13, 1900, reel 7, frame 155, JH-BU.
“The President rules”: Taliaferro, All the Great Prizes, 337.
“may well be doubted”: JH, “American Diplomacy,” in Addresses of John Hay, 111–27.
“Yes, he was trained”: O’Toole, Five of Hearts, 312.
“strange and tragic fate”: JH to Lady Jeune, Sept. 14, 1901, in JH-LL, 2:266.
“The men who are living”: JH, “William McKinley,” in Addresses of John Hay, 135–90.
“If the Presidency had come”: JH to Roosevelt, Sept. 15, 1901, in JH-LL, 2:344.
The two men took care: Taliaferro, All the Great Prizes, 455–56.
economically conservative: Rauchway, Murdering McKinley, 37.
“young, gallant, able”: Taliaferro, All the Great Prizes, 455–56.
“He was much impressed”: JH Diary, Oct. 23, 1904, JH-LC.
“from the head of Abraham Lincoln”: JH to Roosevelt, March 3, 1905, in JH-LL, 2:363.
“deeply moved”: JH Diary, March 4, 1905, JH-LC.
“McKinley sent for me”: Dennett, John Hay, 347.
“great Secretary of State”: Roosevelt to Lodge, July 21, 1905, TR.
“His name, his reputation”: Roosevelt to Lodge, Jan. 28, 1909, TR.
“The Republican party”: JH, “Fifty Years of the Republican Party,” in Addresses of John Hay, tktktk.
Days after William McKinley’s death: Helen Nicolay, Lincoln’s Secretary, 342.
“I say to myself”: JH Diary, June 14, 1905, JH-LC.
Epilogue: July 25, 1947
“Little of what was basically known”: Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, 327–30; Mearns, Lincoln Papers, 135–36.
“one of the few people”: Burlingame, “Nicolay and Hay,” 12.
Selected Bibliography
Adams, Henry. The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1918.
Angle, Paul M. “Here I Have Lived”: A History of Lincoln’s Springfield. Rev. ed. Chicago: Abraham Lincoln Bookshop, 1971.
Baker, Jean H. Mary Todd Lincoln. 1987. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008.
Bancroft, Frederic. The Life of William H. Seward. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1900.
Basler, Roy P., ed. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1953.
Bederman, Gail. Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Bernstein, Ivar. The New York City Draft Riots: Their Significance for American Society and Politics in the Age of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Bigelow, John. Retrospections of an Active Life. Vol. 2. New York: Baker & Taylor, 1909.
