John George Nicolay

In An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln, Michael Burlingame has uncovered buried Lincoln treasure from the papers of one of Lincoln's private secretaries, John G. Nicolay. Between 1872 and 1890, Nicolay and John Hay worked on a monumental ten-volume biography of Lincoln for which they conducted thirty-nine interviews in Springfield and Washington. However, some of Nicolay's notes were written in shorthand, making them inaccessible to researchers. Nicolay and Hay had made little use of the interviews in the published biography, partly because they considered the information too personal or embarrassing for the Lincoln family, especially to Robert Todd Lincoln, and partly because they wanted to rely on contemporary documents rather than reminiscences. Through the interviews Nicolay learned that Lincoln broke off his initial engagement to Mary Todd in 1841, that he suffered from frequent despondency, and that he was constantly anxious that his wife would embarrass him. In this first paperback edition of An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln, Burlingame unearths these documents, skillfully transcribes Nicolay's interviews, and presents them here with context and annotation, offering new insight into previously unknown aspects of Lincoln's life.

John G. Nicolay's Interviews and Essays

An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln

John Hay

The official biography of Abraham Lincoln, who was the sixteenth President of the United States of America. It is a definitive resource on Lincoln and his times, and was written by John Hay and John George Nicolay. John Milton Hay (1838-1905) was an American statesman, diplomat, author, journalist, and private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln. Hay was born in Salem, Indiana, of Scottish ancestry, raised in Warsaw, Illinois, and educated at Brown University (1858), where he joined Theta Delta Chi. In 1861 he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Illinois. He began his public career as a secretary to Abraham Lincoln at age 22, while technically a clerk in the Interior Department. Hay was present when President Lincoln died after being shot at Ford's Theatre. Hay and John G. Nicolay wrote a formal 10-volume biography of Lincoln and prepared an edition of his collected works. He was the author of Castilian Days (1871), Pike County Ballads and Other Poems (1871), The Bread-Winners (1884), Abraham Lincoln: A History (1890), and Poems (1897). John George Nicolay (1832-1901) was an American (German born) biographer and secretary of Abraham Lincoln. In 1838, he immigrated to the United States with his father, attended school in Cincinnati, and later went to Illinois, where he edited the Pike County Free Press at Pittsfield. Then he became assistant to the Secretary of state of Illinois and while in this position met Abraham Lincoln.

A History

Abraham Lincoln

Lincoln's law partner wrote a history of Lincoln containing many little-known facts some of which have been disproved by later scholars.

John George Nicolay

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