Abraham Lincoln A History

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.