Abraham Lincoln: The Observations of John G. Nicolay and John Hay [Hardcover]

Michael Burlingame (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 20, 2007

In 1890 Abraham Lincoln’s two main White House secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay, published the ten-volume biography Abraham Lincoln: A History. Although the authors witnessed the daily events occurring within the executive mansion and the national Capitol, their lengthy biography is more a recounting of the Civil War era than a study of Lincoln’s life.
            Editor Michael Burlingame sifted through the original forty-seven-hundred-page work and selected only the personal observations of the secretaries during the Lincoln presidency, placing ten excerpts in chronological order in Abraham Lincoln: The Observations of John G. Nicolay and John Hay.  The result is an important collection of Nicolay and Hay’s interpretations of Lincoln’s character, actions, and reputation, framed by Burlingame’s compelling preface, introduction, chapter introductions, and notes.  The volume provides vivid descriptions of such events as Election Day in 1860, the crisis at Fort Sumter, the first major battle of the war at Bull Run, and Lincoln’s relationship with Edwin Stanton and George McClellan.
           In this clear and captivating new work, Burlingame has made key portions of Nicolay and Hay’s immense biography available to a wide audience of today’s readers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The introduction is excellent, the annotations enlightening, and the text selections judicious and valuable.”—Allen C. Guelzo, author of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation: The End of Slavery in America and Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President

In 1974 Lincoln scholar Roy P. Basler described himself “As, I suspect, one of the few people yet alive who once read Nicolay and Hay complete…”  That is a claim that not very many could make today as well.  The ten volume Abraham Lincoln: A History is over 4,700 pages long.  It was written with reverence towards the Great Emancipator by his two principal secretaries John G. Nicolay and John Hay.  Unfortunately, by modern standards the work fails as a biography.  It is an odd combination of the history of the times and biography.  Abraham Lincoln disappears for long stretches of the text.  His early life is given only cursory treatment in the first volume.  This section was also subject to censorship from Robert Todd Lincoln who controlled access to Lincoln’s papers.  He let the secretaries use them, but struck out sections of text that he felt were undignified.  The opening of the Lincoln Papers in 1947 and the publication of The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln served to make Hay’s and Nicolay’s work less important as a historical work.

            But perhaps not totally unimportant.  Lincoln historian Michael Burlingame has sifted through the work to pull out a sample of the most revealing parts of the biography and made them accessible in his Abraham Lincoln: The Observations of John G. Nicolay and John Hay.  Burlingame’s Nicolay and Hay credentials are impeccable.  This is the sixth volume he has produced on the duo.  He has edited editions of their diaries, letters, newspaper articles, and interviews.  This book is a fitting capstone to his efforts.  Like his previous volumes Burlingame provides excellent notes and annotations.  He also provides very well done introductions to the material he chooses providing context to the selections.

            John Hay’s diary for the first half of Lincoln’s Presidency was rather thin.  Since those who are familiar with Hay’s diary have probably read the observations of Hay for the second half of the Presidency, Burlingame wisely focuses on the years of 1861-1862 in this book.

            Nicolay and Hay focused on what Mark Neely has called the “high road” of politics and administration rather than giving the reader details on life in the White House.  This is especially frustrating because they were there as witnesses.  However, as Burlingame shows they did provide some snapshots of Lincoln on a personal level.  For example, when Washington was besieged and cut off for a short time after the attack on Fort Sumter, Nicolay and Hay report that Lincoln was frustrated at the slow speed of reinforcements to the city.  They recount that he greeted the few soldiers that came cordially, but as they further report, “…he finally fell into a tone of irony to which only intense feeling ever drove him.  ‘I begin to believe,’ said he, ‘that there is no North.  The Seventh regiment is a myth.  Rhode Island is another.  You are the only real thing.’”  They also capture what must have been the agony of dealing with all the office seekers that crowded the White House.  They write, “At that day the arrangements of the rooms compelled the President to pass through the corridor and the midst of this throng when he went to his meals at the other end of the Executive Mansion; and thus, once or twice a day, the waiting expectants would be rewarded by the chance of speaking a word, or handing a paper direct to the President himself, a chance which the more bold and persistent were not slow to improve.”

            Burlingame shows that Nicolay and Hay had a particular disdain for McClellan.  As staunch Republicans they viewed McClellan as politically untouchable and thought him an utter failure as a military leader.  As Nicolay and Hay write of the Antietam campaign, “McClellan, whose conduct from beginning to end can only be condemned, received the command of a great army, reorganized and reinforced, and with it a chance for magnificent achievement, if he had been able to improve it, which no officer before or since ever enjoyed on this continent.”  When dealing with McClellan, Nicolay and Hay showed their unshakable loyalty to their former chief.

            To those who view every primary source on Lincoln as something precious, Burlingame has once again provided a valuable service.  No longer will readers have to slog through the ten volumes of Nicolay and Hay to get to those golden nuggets of reminiscences of Lincoln by those close to him.  In Abraham Lincoln: The Observations of John G. Nicolay and John Hay it has already been done for them.

 

 

(Lincoln Herald )

About the Author

Michael Burlingame, Sadowski Professor of History Emeritus at Connecticut College, is the author of The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln and the editor of eleven books about Lincoln, including An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay’s Interviews and Essays, winner of the Abraham Lincoln Association Prize. He won the prestigious Lincoln Prize, honorable mention, for his five edited collections of letters, memoranda, editorial essays, lectures, and interviews by Lincoln’s White House private secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay, all published by Southern Illinois University Press.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press; 1st edition (February 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0809327384
• ISBN-13: 978-0809327386
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,239,763 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Michael Burlingame, whose website is www.michaelburlingame.com, is the holder of the Chancellor Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at the University of Illinois-Springfield.

He was born in Washington DC and attended Phillips Academy, Andover. As a freshman at Princeton University, he took the Civil War course taught by the eminent Lincolnian David Herbert Donald, who hired him a research assistant. When Professor Donald moved on to Johns Hopkins University, Burlingame upon graduation from Princeton followed him to that institution. There he received his Ph.D.

In 1968 he joined the History Department at Connecticut College in New London, where he taught until retiring in 2001 as the May Buckley Sadowski Professor of History Emeritus. He joined the faculty of the University of Illinois-Springfield in 2009.

He currently lives in Springfield, where he is working on several Lincoln-related projects.

He is an avid fan of opera and hockey.

Professor Burlingame is the author of "Abraham Lincoln: A Life" (2 vols.; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008) and "The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln" (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994).

In addition, he has edited several volumes of Lincoln primary source materials:

An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay's Interviews and Essays (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1996)

Inside Lincoln's White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997) - co-edited with John R. Turner Ettlinger

Lincoln Observed: Civil War Dispatches of Noah Brooks (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998)

Lincoln's Journalist: John Hay's Anonymous Writings for the Press, 1860-1864 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1998)

An expanded edition of A Reporter's Lincoln by Walter B. Stevens (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998)

With Lincoln in the White House: Letters, Memoranda, and Other Writings of John G. Nicolay, 1860-1865 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000)

At Lincoln's Side: John Hay's Civil War Correspondence and Selected Writings (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000)

Inside the White House in War Times: Memoirs and Reports of Lincoln's Secretary by William O. Stoddard (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000)

Dispatches from Lincoln's White House: The Anonymous Civil War Journalism of Presidential Secretary William O. Stoddard (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002)

An expanded edition of The Real Lincoln: A Portrait, by Jesse W. Weik (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002)

"Lincoln's Humor" and Other Essays by Benjamin P. Thomas (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002);

Abraham Lincoln: The Observations of John G. Nicolay and John Hay (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2007).

He has received the Abraham Lincoln Association Book Prize (1996), the Lincoln Diploma of Honor from Lincoln Memorial University (1998), Honorable Mention for the Lincoln Prize, Gettsyburg College (2001), and was inducted into the Lincoln Academy of Illinois in 2009.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars My Observations, March 6, 2007

By 

Christian Schlect (Yakima, Washington/USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Abraham Lincoln: The Observations of John G. Nicolay and John Hay (Hardcover)

A book for the person with an existing fair understanding of the White House years of Abraham Lincoln.

Professor Burlingame provides a great service to those of us who are keenly interested in this great president, but who do not have the time to read the imposing and very dated ten-volume history produced by his two close aides, Nicolay and Hay. This book fills a specific void; it certainly should not be confused with a full biography.

While it is surprising that so little was directly said by Nicolay and Hay about their chief in their history, I am happy that Professor Burlingame did the hard work of mining its ten volumes for the benefit of lazy readers like me.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Great Disappointment, December 30, 2008

By 

Jac Whatley (Rome, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Abraham Lincoln: The Observations of John G. Nicolay and John Hay (Hardcover)

This book was a tremendous disappointment, and not at all worth the price. Less than half of the very slim volume is made up of observations from Nicolay and Hay. The balance is a long introduction and commentary by the author. Much of the contextual material provided is a duplication of the N&H section that follows. Only the first two years of the Lincoln administration is included, and the book ends abruptly.

3 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lincoln's Legacy not well served., May 12, 2007

By 

Mr. L. Power "Lorenzo" (Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Abraham Lincoln: The Observations of John G. Nicolay and John Hay (Hardcover)

The book was very short and only covered areas of limited interest on Lincoln's Presidency. Beside other titles on Lincoln that I have bought this was a major disappointement. There was no flow of quality prose to create interest in specific story lines which were too sketchy. The book's objectives were too limited from the outset and it's main merits are that it may serve as a useful reference book for later purchases. It will do little to add or detract to the legacy of Lincoln.
Lorenzo
Ireland