(3) Robert Todd Lincoln
(4) General George B. McClellan
(5) Secretary of State William Seward
(6) Horace Greeley
(7) Whitelaw Reid
(8) Bret Harte
(9) William Dean Howells
(10) Constance Fenimore Woolson
(11) Henry James
(12) Rutherford B. Hayes
(13) James Garfield
(14) Roscoe Conkling
(15) Henry Adams, photographed by Clover Adams
(16) Clarence King
(17) Marian “Clover” Adams
(18) Anna “Nannie” Lodge
(19) Henry Cabot Lodge
(20) John Hay with French edition of Democracy, photographed by Clover Adams
(21) Elizabeth Sherman Cameron, portrait by Anders Zorn
(22) James Donald Cameron
(23) Clara Stone Hay, portrait by Anders Zorn
(24) William McKinley, John Hay, and cabinet
(25) Alvey Adee
(26) William Rockhill
(27) Mark Hanna
(28) Philippe Bunau-Varilla
(29) William Nelson Cromwell
(30) Hay house, Euclid Avenue, Cleveland
(31) Amasa Stone
(32) Hay and Adams houses, Washington, D. C.
(33) The Fells
(34) Helen Hay
(35) Adelbert Hay
(36) Alice Hay
(37) Clarence Hay
(38) Theodore Roosevelt, portrait by John Singer Sargent
(39) John Hay, portrait by John Singer Sargent
Acknowledgments
It was serendipity that brought me to John Hay. In reading accounts of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination and then of William McKinley’s, I was astonished to see that Hay had been at the bedside of both presidents as they lay dying. I soon learned from the seminal biographies of Hay written by William Roscoe Thayer and Tyler Dennett that these events, indelible to be sure, were but two of the benchmarks in Hay’s brilliant life. Next I plunged into Hay’s Civil War letters and diaries, as transcribed, edited, and annotated by Michael Burlingame. I proudly count myself among the hundreds, more likely thousands, of researchers in Dr. Burlingame’s debt. My work would have been exponentially more difficult without the advantage of his painstaking and groundbreaking scholarship on Lincoln’s private secretaries, John Hay and John George Nicolay.
Lincoln has had many beneficial biographers over the years, besides Nicolay and Hay. The most valuable—which is to say, the most informative, intelligent, and influential—are Burlingame, David Herbert Donald, and Doris Kearns Goodwin. Theodore Roosevelt has his own cohort of skilled portraitists, the most trenchant, to my eye, being Henry F. Pringle, David McCullough, Howard K. Beale, Kathleen Dalton, and Edmund Morris. And to appreciate the noble and nuanced statuary that is William McKinley, I climbed upon the shoulders of his three keenest observers, Margaret Leech, H. Wayne Morgan, and Lewis L. Gould.
Even the best libraries are only as good as their librarians. For their cooperation, indulgence, and kindness, I whisper my hearty thanks to Ann Sindelar and the staff of the Western Reserve Historical Society Library; Holly Snyder and the staff of the John Hay Library at Brown University; the staffs of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, and Houghton Library of Harvard University; and, once again, the conscientious and convivial minders of the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress.
Likewise I am grateful to John Simpson, director of the Winous Point Marsh Conservancy, who showed me around John Hay’s old duck club, where the logs of Hay’s shooting days are well cared for, along with a few of his original decoys. Mary Kronenwetter, education director at the Fells, gave me an enlightening tour of the New Hampshire retreat where the spirit of its long-ago resident yet abides in peace and lovingly curated beauty. In Washington, James Symington was equally generous with his time and family lore.
Let me also thank Rebecca Onion, who helped me with early, essential spadework in Austin; the Livingston (Montana) Public Library for allowing me to hog its microfilm reader; Ann Adelman for superb copyediting; Cyndi Hughes for uncrossing my i’s; Jane Martin for ferreting photographs; and Jonathan Cox for directing traffic all along the way.
To spend four years in the company of John Hay has been my great prize, and I would not have been able to start or complete my worthwhile endeavor without the advice, consent, and encouragement of my agent, Esther Newberg, and my editor, Alice Mayhew. I trust that I have lived up to their high standards, as I trust that I have done justice to John Hay, a biographer’s dream come true.
© AUDREY HALL
JOHN TALIAFERRO is a graduate of Harvard College, a former senior editor at Newsweek, and the author of four previous books. He lives in Austin, Texas, and Pray, Montana.
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Notes
Abbreviations used in the Notes:
AA Alvey Adee
AL Abraham Lincoln
ALPLM Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
AP Adams Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society
B-AL Michael Burlingame, Abraham Lincoln: A Life, 2 vols. (2008)
B-CORR Michael Burlingame, ed., At Lincoln’s Side: John Hay’s Civil War Correspondence and Selected Writings (2000)
B&E Michael Burlingame and John R. Turner Ettlinger, eds., Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Civil War Diary of John Hay (1997)
B-JOUR Michael Burlingame, ed., Lincoln’s Journalist: John Hay’s Anonymous Writings for the Press, 1860–1865 (1998)
B-NIC Michael Burlingame, ed., With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860–1865 (2000)
B-V Philippe Bunau-Varilla
B-W John Hay, The Bread-Winners: A Social Study (1884)
CFW Constance Fenimore Woolson
CK Clarence King
CSH Clara Stone Hay
DEN Tyler Dennett, John Hay: From Poetry to Politics (1933)
ESC Elizabeth Sherman Cameron
FR Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States
HA Henry Adams
HAE Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography (1918); reprinted as Novels, Mont Saint Michel, The Education (Library of America, 1983)
HAL J. C. Levenson, et al., eds., The Letters of Henry Adams, 8 vols. (1982–88)
HA-MHS Henry Adams Papers, microfilm, Massachusetts Historical Society
HCL Henry Cabot Lodge
HCL-MHS Henry Cabot Lodge Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society
HJ-JH George Monteiro, Henry James and John Hay: The Record of a Friendship (1965)
HW Henry White
HW-LC Henry White Papers, Library of Congress
JC Joseph Choate
JGN John George Nicolay
JGN-LC, John George Nicolay Papers, Library of Congress
JH John Hay
JH-ADD Addresses of John Hay (1907)
JH-ALPLM John Hay Papers, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum
JH-BU John Hay Papers, John Hay Library, Brown University
JH-CPW The Complete Poetical Works of John Hay (1917)
JH-LC John Hay Papers, Library of Congress
JH-LET Clara Hay, ed., Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, 3 vols. (1908)
JH-WDH George Monteiro and Brenda Murphy, eds., John Hay-Howells Letters: The Correspondence of John Milton Hay and William Dean Howells, 1861–1905 (1980)
LC Library of Congress
M-WRHS Mather Family Papers, Western Reserve Historical Society
MCK William McKinley
MCK-LC William McKinley Papers, Library of Congress
MHA Marian Hooper (Clover) Adams
MHS Massachusetts Historical Society
N&H:AL John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History, 10 vols. (1890)
RTL Robert Todd Lincoln
TR Theodore Roosevelt
TR-LET Elting Morison, et al., eds., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (1951–54)
WAD-LC Wadsworth Family Papers, Library of Congress
WDH William Dean Howells
WR Whitelaw Reid
WR-LC Whitelaw Reid Correspondence, Library of Congress
WRHS Western Reserve Historical Society
WRT William Roscoe Thayer
WRT-HU William Roscoe Thayer Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University
WRT-L&L William Roscoe Thayer, The Life and Letters of John Hay, 2 vols. (1908)
WWR William W. Rockhill
WWR-HU William W. Rockhill Papers, Houghton Library, Harvard University
Chapter 1: Oughtnottobiography
“ill-kept, inconvenient”: JGN to Therena Bates, March 26, 1865, B-NIC, 176.
“[S]omething happened”: Thomas E. Pendel, Thirty-Six Years in the White House, 42–44.
“Now he belongs”: N&H:AL 10:302.
standing amid his father’s papers: Goff, Robert Todd Lincoln, 72.
“Words seem so inadequate”: JGN to Therena Bates, April 24, 1865, B-NIC, 178.
“I found the shadow”: JH to RTL, August 26, 1865, JH-BU.
“the greatest man of his time”: N&H:AL 10:295.
“the tall gaunt figure”: “Abraham Lincoln’s Shakespeare,” James G. Randall MS, in B&E, 346.
“I’m keeper”: F. A. Mitchel to JH, February 12, 1905, JH-BU.
“more fun than a goat”: JH to HA, June 15, 1900, HA-MHS.
“splendid little war”: JH to TR, July 27, 1898, in WRT-L&L 2:337.
both dog and cat: White, Masks in a Pageant, 285–86.
“You do things so easily”: JH to ESC, n.d., AP.
“embonpoint”: Unidentified clipping, n.d., JH scrapbook, JH-LC.
“an oughtnottobiography”: JH to R. W. Gilder, March 1, 1902, JH-BU.
“He so far overshadows”: [New York] Evening Sun, n.d. [1903], clipping, JH scrapbook, JH-LC.
“If a man [were to]”: “The Great Secretary of State,” 6561.
“extreme refinement . . . allege his own merits”: Address by Elihu Root at the Dedication of the John Hay Library, BU, November 11, 1910, JH-BU.
Chapter 2: Spunky Point
a pat on the head: JH, Life of Dr. Charles Hay, 3.
“harsh and arbitrary ideas”: JH, ibid., 4.
met with “gratifying success”: Biographical Review of Hancock County, 12.
“But he always”: JH, Life of Dr. Charles Hay, 5.
the first man to sign: JH, ibid., 5–6.
“the rigorous fashion”: JH, genealogy of David August Leonard, 1896, MS, JH-LC.
“[Y]ou are no doubt . . . Shakespeare expresses it”: Charles Hay to Elisabeth Hay, July 27, 1829, JH-BU.
“It has made our town”: Charles Hay to Milton Hay, July 15, 1833, JH-BU.
“the le[a]ven of a better character”: Charles Hay to “Dear Sister,” September 23, 1830, JH-BU.
“light reading . . . favorite reading”: JH, Life of Dr. Charles Hay, 12.
“There are quite as many”: Charles Hay to Milton Hay, November 3, 1836, Charles Hay Papers, ALPLM.
“[H]e had an inexhaustible”: Chapman, “The Boyhood of John Hay,” 449.
“[S]ome idiots”: JH to Harriet Loring, June 30, 1870, WRT-L&L 1:7.
“one of the many western”: [HA], “Biography of John Hay,” The Reserve, published by the Junior Class of Adelbert College, 1893, 10.
“reposing from its plunge”: JH, “The Blood Seedling,” 281.
“O grandly flowing”: JH, “On the Bluff,” JH-CPW, 171.
“a region whose moral”: JH to Sarah Whitman, August 30, 1858, JH-BU.
exile from the East: JH to Sarah Whitman, December 15, 1858, JH-BU.
“The ruling motive”: N&H:AL 1:16.
reestablishing himself as a physician: Chapman, “The Boyhood of John Hay,” 446.
“They were not especially”: JH, Life of Dr. Charles Hay, 12.
“The rule of the household”: JH, ibid., 15.
“John was a student”: Charles E. Hay to WRT, December 22, 1923, WRT-HU.
“It can be proven”: Warsaw Signal, April 24, 1844.
“sitting on his throne . . . iron rod”: Warsaw Signal, February 28, 1844.
“[H]e was everywhere”: JH, The Life of Dr. Charles Hay, 11.
an article to the Atlantic . . . “sustain that verdict”: JH, “The Mormon Prophet’s Tragedy,” 669–78.
“When we were both”: Charles E. Hay to WRT, December 22, 1923, WRT-HU.
“[H]e was spoken of”: Ibid.
“red-cheeked . . . like a professor”: Chapman, “The Boyhood of John Hay,” 449.
“There had been very little”: N&H:AL 1:154.
“[A]ll the sentimental”: JH to his sister, March 5, 1854, DEN 18.
“I had a whirling”: JH to “Dear Friends,” September 30, 1855, JH-BU.
“He at once”: Chapman, “The Boyhood of John Hay,” 450.
“[I]f I go through so hurriedly”: JH to “My Dear friends,” November 28, 1955, JH-BU.
“The professors . . . hear him lecture”: Ibid.
“Hay that is green”: W. E. Louttit, “John Hay in Theta Delta Chi,” typescript, JH-BU.
“Resolved . . . than poets”: W. E. Louttit, ibid.
“a young Dr. Johnson”: William Leete Stone, “John Hay, 1858,” Memories of Brown: Traditions and Recollections Gathered from Many Sources (1909), 154.
“the most felicitous”: Angell, Reminiscences, 109.
“They are our brothers”: JH, “The Fratricidal Character of War with England,” MS, March 1856, JH-ALPLM.
“The first who undertook”: JH, “Foreign Travel Beneficial to the Man of Letters,” MS, n.d., JH-ALPLM.
“Political feeling”: JH to “My Dear Uncle,” March 30, 1856, JH-BU.
Hay and a roommate: James Angell to William Leete Stone, March 25, 1906, JH-BU.
“To say it was a class poem”: WDH, “John Hay in Literature,” 343.
“When I look . . . upon me now”: JH to Hannah Angell, August 13 and July 19, 1858, A College Friendship 26, 17.
“I am unhappy”: JH to Hannah Angell, October 20, 1858, ibid., 33.
“The prevailing tendency”: JH, untitled MS, n.d., JH-ALPLM.
“[N]ow that my journey”: JH to Nora Perry, August 30, 1858, in Ticknor, ed., A Poet in Exile, 13.
“I have been very near”: JH to Sarah Whitman, December 15, 1858, JH-BU.
“I alternate between”: JH to Hannah Angell, May 2, 1859, A College Friendship, 45–46.
“If you want to see”: JH to Leander C. Manchester, July 23, 1857, JH-BU.
“How like a fool . . . will be quiet”: JH to Hannah Angell, October 20 and December 11, 1858, A College Friendship, 34, 38.
“I prefer”: JH to Nora Perry, January 2, 1859, in Ticknor, ed., A Poet in Exile, 24.
“Drearily sweeping”: JH, “In the Mist,” ibid., 27–28.
“I believe in the maxim”: Charles Hay to “My Dear Brother,” September 6, 1858, JH-BU.
“I would not do”: JH to “My Dear Uncle,” January 2
8, 1859, JH-BU.
“In a short while . . . shorter sorrow”: JH to William Douglas O’Connor, February 6, 1859, JH-BU.
The other attorneys of record: Miers, ed., Lincoln Day by Day, 2:257.
“I am stranded”: JH to “Dear Friend” [William Leete Stone], May 20, 1859, JH-BU.
“One of his original conundrums”: Mary Ridgley Hay, “Springfield, Illinois, in 1860, by a Native Springfielder,” typescript, n.d., JH-BU.
“a tongue that could”: Brown, “Springfield Society Before the Civil War,” 497–98.
“He was, for those”: Carr, The Illini, 139.
“dark, lustrous . . . in those days”: Mary Ridgley Hay, “Springfield, Illinois, in 1860.”
“the close, methodical”: John Russell Young, “Lincoln as He Was,” Pittsburgh Dispatch, August 23, 1891, in Burlingame, ed., With Lincoln in the White House, xviii.
“[I]f ever there was”: Mary Ridgley Hay, “Springfield, Illinois, in 1860.”
“My insanity has not”: JH to Hannah Angell, May 5, 1860, A College Friendship, 55.
“When the lightning . . . and jubilant”: Ecarte, Providence Journal, May 26, 1860, B-JOUR 1–3.
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