by Joshua Zeitz
“Business is dull”: JGN to John Bigelow, April 21, 1868, box 4, JGN-LC.
“I won’t flatter you”: JGN to TB, Aug. 13, 1866, box 4, JGN-LC.
“Kiss Helen for me”: JGN to TB, Aug. 18, 1866, box 4, JGN-LC.
“appears like [Dickens’s] Major Bagstock”: JGN to TB, Aug. 23, 1866, box 4, JGN-LC.
“I received your letter”: JGN to TB, Aug. 16, 1866, box 4, JGN-LC.
“There is a little tot”: JGN to JH, July 17, 1868, box 4, JGN-LC.
“One torment”: JH-LL, 1:229–30.
Christmas reception at the palace: Ibid., 1:237–38.
“I must begin to occupy myself”: JH to Seward, n.d. [ca. Sept. 1866], reel 6, frames 21–23, JH-BU; Taliaferro, All the Great Prizes, 67.
“got as much out”: JH to Milton Hay, Sept. 30, 1866, reel 6, frames 28–31, JH-BU.
“Well, John Hay”: JH-LL, 1:247–59.
“would ruin the best cause”: JH to Milton Hay, Sept. 30, 1866, reel 6, frames 28–31, JH-BU.
“more richly and carefully furnished”: JH-LL, 1:257, 263.
“digging some, planting”: Ibid., 276.
“a little at sea”: JH to JGN, Feb. 14, 1867, reel 6, frames 33–36, JH-BU.
“stay where you are”: JH to JGN, March 18, 1867, reel 6, frames 44–47, JH-BU.
“You ought to come see this town”: JH to JGN, Sept. 2, 1867, reel 6, frame 63, JH-BU.
“poked around Poland”: JH to JGN, Oct. 19, 1867, reel 6, frames 64–67, JH-BU.
“I hate the water”: JH to JGN, Nov. 24, 1867, reel 6, frames 69–74, JH-BU.
“It is curious”: JH to Bigelow, April 27, 1868, in Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life, 4:178–79.
In the coming months: JH to Bigelow, Feb. 27, 1868, reel 6, frames 82–85, JH-BU.
“of prime talents and ambition”: JH to JGN, June 30, 1868, reel 6, frames 104–6, JH-BU.
“I have been hoping”: JGN to JH, Aug. 9, 1868, box 4, JGN-LC.
By late summer: JH to Charles B. Norton, Sept. 17, 1868, reel 6, frame 115, JH-BU; JH to JGN, Oct. 14, 1868, reel 6, frames 117–19, JH-BU.
“as close-mouthed as ever”: JH to JGN, Dec. 8, 1868, reel 6, frame 120, JH-BU.
selling poems: JH to JGN, May 14, 1869, reel 6, frames 125–27, JH-BU.
“I have determined”: Dennett, John Hay, 66.
“blind reverence”: JH, Castilian Days, 56, 60.
“new and beneficent spirit”: Ibid., 369–70.
“Necessity of the Republic”: Ibid., 406.
“every month that my father”: Helen Nicolay, Lincoln’s Secretary, 252.
“central idea pervading”: Hay Diary, May 7, 1861.
“The heap will smoulder”: Helen Nicolay, Lincoln’s Secretary, 252–53.
“I am glad I committed”: JH to JGN, Oct. 7, May 1869, reel 6, frames 140–45, JH-BU.
“I was never so thoroughly”: JH to Bigelow, Feb. 20, 1870, reel 6, frames 150–53, JH-BU.
Chapter 12: Pike County Balladeer
“Should the worse come”: Helen Nicolay, Lincoln’s Secretary, 225–26.
“Small water lilies”: Ibid., 263–64.
William Dean Howells: Howells to JGN, Sept. 24, 1871, box 4, JGN-LC.
“Daniel Boones and the Davy Crocketts”: New York Times, March 2, 1871, 6; Feb. 13, 1871, 2; Jan. 27, 1871, 2.
Bogotá: JGN to Harlan, June 29, 1872; Colfax to JGN, July 2, 1872; Boutwell to JGN, July 5, 1872; Chandler to JGN, July 19, 1872, box 4, JGN-LC.
marshal of the U.S. Supreme Court: Philadelphia Public Ledger and Daily Transcript, Dec. 16, 1872.
“few more desirable”: Milton Hay to JGN, Dec. 24, 1872, box 4, JGN-LC.
“M. Hay told me”: JH to JGN, Nov. 22, 1872, reel 6, frames 348–50, JH-BU.
“I have a sure income”: JH to Bigelow, July 9, 1870, in Bigelow, Retrospections of an Active Life, 4:369.
“Nicolay and I agreed”: JH to Howells, Oct. 2, 1870, reel 6, frames 176–77, JH-BU.
“I will try to shin around”: JH to JGN, Oct. 13, 1870, reel 6, frames 178–80, JH-BU.
“I cannot regard it”: JH to JGN, Dec. 12, 1870, reel 6, frames 185–88, JH-BU.
“Greeley does the thinking”: O’Toole, Five of Hearts, 43; JH-LL, 1:331–34.
“six miles, more or less”: New-York Tribune, Oct. 17, 1871, 1.
“done as well as I could”: JH to Reid, Oct. 15, 1871, JH-LL, vol. 1, 338–39.
“waste[d] two-thirds of my time”: JH to Bigelow, March 12, 1871, reel 6, frames 199–201, JH-BU.
as many as four columns each day: JH to Clara Stone, Oct. 23, 1873, reel 6, frames 332–35, JH-BU.
second-in-command: JH to Bigelow, March 12, 1871, reel 6, frames 199–201, JH-BU.
“It was a liberal education”: Dennett, John Hay, 91–93.
“ridiculous rhyme”: JH to JGN, Dec. 12, 1870; JH to JGN, n.d. [ca. 1871], reel 6, frames 185–88, 196–98, JH-BU; Dennett, John Hay, 71.
“a number of dialects”: Stevenson and Stevenson, “John Milton Hay’s Literary Influence,” 21–25.
“Plain Language from Truthful James”: Taliaferro, All the Great Prizes, 134–35.
“sense of the backwoods”: Howells, “John Hay in Literature,” 345–47.
“The Foster-Brothers”: JH, “Foster-Brothers.”
“an immense favorite of the ladies”: Taliaferro, All the Great Prizes, 120.
“I have been brought down”: Ibid., 150.
“I have sometimes gazed”: JH to Clara Stone, March 4, 1873, reel 6, frame 250, JH-BU.
“There will be an internecine war”: JH to JGN, Aug. 27, 1873, reel 6, frame 369, JH-BU.
“obliged to leave”: RTL to JGN, June 16, 1873, box 4, JGN-LC.
“My work in journalism”: JH to Alvey A. Adee, Nov. 28, 1874, reel 6, frames 397–400, JH-BU.
“merely the care of investments”: JH to Alvey A. Adee, Dec. 14, 1875, reel 6, frames 41–46, JH-BU.
“Known best as a verse-maker”: O’Toole, Five of Hearts, 128; Dennett, John Hay, 106.
“My wife keeps well and lovely”: JH to Alvey A. Adee, Dec. 14, 1875, reel 6, frames 413–16, JH-BU.
“He was so tender-hearted”: Taliaferro, All the Great Prizes, 273.
“prize it [and] wear it”: Hayes to JH, Feb. 27, 1877, reel 7, frame 696, JH-BU.
“All Euclid Avenue”: Taliaferro, All the Great Prizes, 183–84.
ushered into his secretary’s office: JH to Clara Stone Hay, Nov. 21, 1879, reel 6, frames 493–96, JH-BU.
“Think of that”: JH to Clara Stone Hay, Nov. 24, 1879, reel 6, frame 502, JH-BU.
“Today was an important one”: JH to Clara Stone Hay, Nov. 25, 1879, reel 6, frames 505–8, JH-BU.
“Friends are born”: Adams, Education of Henry Adams, 106.
“chats for two”: O’Toole, Five of Hearts, 68–70.
“I cannot really say I regret”: JH to Clara Stone Hay, Feb. 7, 1880, reel 6, frames 623–26, JH-BU.
“clamorous greedy host”: JH to Clara Stone Hay, March 2, 1880, reel 6, frame 665, JH-BU.
“a little tiresome”: JH to Clara Stone Hay, March 3, 1880, reel 6, frame 671, JH-BU.
cabinet meetings grew routine: JH to Clara Stone Hay, June 20, 1880, reel 6, frame 712, JH-BU.
“glad all my life”: JH to Clara Stone Hay, Feb. 15, 1880, reel 6, frame 644, JH-BU.
“Mrs. Hay, gravely clad”: Twain, Autobiography of Mark Twain, 233–34.
“I should have been nominated”: JH to Clara Stone Hay, Dec. 18, 1879, July 25, 1880, reel 6, frames 559, 733, JH-BU.
“The more I see the life”: JH to Clara Stone Hay, Dec. 8, 1879, reel 6, frames 538–41, JH-BU.
equal in rank and
pay: Garfield to JH, Dec. 10, 1880, reel 4, frame 1397, JH-BU.
“To do a thing well”: JH to Garfield, Dec. 25, 1880, in JH-LL, 1:443–444.
Chapter 13: Breadwinners
two mansions but no home: Taliaferro, All the Great Prizes, 157, 167, 243–49; O’Toole, Five of Hearts, 153–57.
more wealth: Taliaferro, All the Great Prizes, 223.
“literary society”: JH to Clara Stone Hay, Dec. 8, Dec. 22, 1879, Feb. 8, June 20, 1880, reel 6, frames 542, 567, 629, 712–14, JH-BU.
“Had they been Tyrian traders”: Adams, Education of Henry Adams, 237.
“In April 1861”: Foner, Reconstruction, 19.
“great gulf”: Keller, Affairs of State, 2.
dramatically accelerated economic transformations: Ibid., 19–21, 462; McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 428–53; Curry, Blueprint for Modern America; Richardson, Greatest Nation of the Earth; Lawson, Patriot Fires, 40–64.
“rendered very valuable service”: Richardson, West from Appomattox, 129.
“Every greenback”: Keller, Affairs of State, 191.
The boom proved lucrative: Hays, Response to Industrialism, 150–51; Painter, Standing at Armageddon, chaps. 1–2.
“The Democratic party is our Evil”: JH to Reid, Oct. 15, 1879, in JH-LL, 1:434.
“liked Tilden very much”: JH to Howells, Feb. 20, 1877, in Monteiro and Murphy, John Hay–Howells Letters, 22–23.
dismissed most congressmen: JH to Alvey A. Adee, Feb. 20, 1877, reel 6, frames 433–36, JH-BU.
“I am utterly opposed”: Foner, Reconstruction, 481.
Godkin: Ibid., 489.
Parkman: Ibid., 489.
a region that would struggle: Foner, Reconstruction, 125; McPherson, Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution, 17.
“the masses will never be”: Foner, Reconstruction, 478.
“communistic war”: Ibid., 518.
“the most extensive and deplorable”: Ibid., 583.
“The strikers have been put down”: Ibid., 585.
In their zeal: Rondinone, The Great Industrial War, 38–57.
“During my two terms of office”: Grant to Daniel Ammen, Aug. 26, 1877, in Simon, Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, 28:251–53.
“We at the North”: Keller, Affairs of State, 4.
“A few shots fired”: JH to Amasa Stone, July 24, 1877, in JH-LL, 2:1–3.
“the law-and-order men”: JH to Amasa Stone, July 27, 1877, in JH-LL, 2:3–4.
“The very devil”: JH to Amasa Stone, Aug. 23, 1877, in JH-LL, 2:5.
“Thackeray and Dickens”: Dennett, John Hay, 112.
“free-hand sketch”: Vandersee, “Great Literary Mystery of the Gilded Age,” 244.
“been accustomed to earning”: Dennett, John Hay, 112–13.
“We think we have done”: Dennett, John Hay, 127.
Chapter 14: A Model for All the Good Little Boys to Follow
“Please come to Washington”: Mearns, Lincoln Papers, 15–17, 45, 139.
“not any letters”: Ibid., 11.
“I believe Lincoln”: JH to Herndon, Sept. 5, 1866, in WH, 307–8.
“The age of blind hero worship”: Herndon to Arnold, Nov. 20, 1866, in WH, 39.
“enquires & interrogations”: Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, 168.
“eminently Christian”: Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, 67–69; Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, 170–71, 212–13.
all sought to enshrine: Thomas, Portrait for Posterity, 7.
“was not God”: Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, 170.
“I have been with the people”: Ibid., 184–85.
“the best boy”: Ibid., 168, 182–83.
“even when I differ”: Mearns, Lincoln Papers, 49.
“seemed to glide through”: Clinton, Mrs. Lincoln, 344.
Herndon could not easily be ignored: Thomas, Portrait for Posterity, 17.
“general greed for office”: Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, 202–6.
“The recollection of my beloved”: Ibid., 190.
Ann Rutledge: Ibid., 185–86; Wilson and Davis, Herndon’s Informants, 21.
“There, by that—there”: Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, 218.
“in the presence of Ann Rutledge”: Ibid., 219.
ardent student of history: Turner, Frontier in American History; Potter, People of Plenty; Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005).
“shave a horse’s main”: Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, 226–27.
“monstrous figure”: Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, 209–10.
“Abraham Lincoln loved”: Herndon, Abraham Lincoln.
swift and brutal: Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, 230, 237.
“I have never had any doubt”: Mearns, Lincoln Papers, 50–51.
“to make some considerable mention”: Ibid.
Abraham Enlow: Herndon to Ward Hill Lamon, March 6, 1870, in WH, 73.
“struggles, difficulties”: Herndon to Isaac Arnold, Nov. 20, 1866, in WH, 37.
“Mrs. Lincoln’s domestic quarrels”: Herndon to Charles Hart, Nov. 26, 1866, in WH, 40.
“What a wife!”: Herndon to Jesse Weik, Nov. 19, 1885, in WH, 105.
“I need kicking”: Thomas, Portrait for Posterity, 26.
“He certainly does not compare well”: Jeremiah Black to David Davis, July 9, 1870, in Mearns, Lincoln Papers, 59.
“tell the truth”: Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, 256–57.
“Can’t you stop him?”: Thomas, Portrait for Posterity, 44.
“It is absolutely horrible”: RTL to JH, April 7, 1872, reel 8, JH-BU.
“a vulgar man”: Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, 80.
“Mr. Herndon has troubled the family”: Jeremiah Black to Davis, July 9, 1870; Davis to Jeremiah Black, Aug. 19, 1870, in Mearns, Lincoln Papers, 59–61.
“Would you have Mr. Lincoln”: Herndon to Isaac Arnold, Nov. 20, 1866, in WH, 38.
“Mr. Lincoln was my good friend”: Herndon to Lamon, March 6, 1870, in WH, 71.
“the noblest and loveliest man”: Herndon to Francis Carpenter, Dec. 11, 1866, in WH, 48; JH to JGN, March 5, 1867, reel 6, frames 37–39, JH-BU.
“Read (+ send back)”: JH to JGN, Dec. 1866, reel 6, frame 32, JH-BU.
“dishes our chances”: JH to JGN, March 5, 1867, reel 6, frames 37–39, JH-BU.
“nobody is keen”: JH to JGN, March 18, 1867, reel 6, frames 44–47, JH-BU.
“convinced that we ought”: JH to JGN, Nov. 22, 1872, reel 6, frames 348–49, JH-BU.
“There are in this city”: JGN to RTL, March 3, 1872, box 4, JGN-LC.
so many of Lincoln’s friends: Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, 172–73; Guelzo, “Come-Outers and Community Men.”
prominent Illinois politicians: Donald, Lincoln’s Herndon, 263. See also Josephine Louise Harper, “Post-Lincoln Party Attitudes of Lincoln’s Friends” (master’s thesis, University of Illinois, 1943).
“I must affirm”: Welles, Lincoln and Seward, 24–25.
Horace Greeley: Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, 86.
“contemptible assertions”: JGN to RTL, n.d. (ca. 1872), box 4, JGN-LC.
“time about a ‘Life of Lincoln’”: Gilder to JH, April 25, 1874; JH to JGN, April 26, 1874, reel 6, frames 381–82, JH-BU.
“The work is a heavy one”: JH to Colfax, July 20, 1875, reel 6, frame 404, JH-BU.
“The reading public in this country”: Milton Hay to JGN, Dec. 24, 1872, box 4, JGN-LC.
“We [are] in no hurry to make arrangements”: JH to JGN, April 26, 1874, reel 6, frame 381, JH-BU.
Chapter 15: Our Ideal Hero
“whoever attempts to limn”: Hele
n Nicolay, Lincoln’s Secretary, 280–81.
“I beg of you”: JGN to RTL, July 17, 1874, box 4, JGN-LC.
obituary for the New-York Tribune: ALS, xv, 111–13.
“latent power of observation”: JGN to JH, April 24, 1868, box 4, JGN-LC.
“I need not tell you”: JH to RTL, Jan. 27, 1884, in JH-LL, 2: tktk
“writing the life of Lincoln”: Herndon to Jesse Weik, Jan. 22, 1887, in WH, 156–59.
“plenary blue pen powers”: Thomas, Portrait for Posterity, 111.
“It is beyond doubt”: RTL to JH, April 17, 1885, reel 8, JH-BU.
In his original draft: Thomas, Portrait for Posterity, 114–15; N&H-AL, 1:23.
“cabin was like that”: Thomas, Portrait for Posterity, 117; N&H-AL, 1:30.
shake the foundations of American historical consciousness: Novick, That Noble Dream, 21–22, 25, 33, 48–49; Ross, “Historical Consciousness in Nineteenth-Century America.”
interviewing dozens of individuals: Reel 9, frames 625–745, JH-BU.
“I have a large amount”: JH to JGN, Feb. 28, 1878, reel 6, frame 452, JH-BU.
On rare occasions: N&H-AL, 1:266–78.
“You see the sort of pig-headed”: JH to JGN, Oct. 14, 1889, reel 6, frame 1141, JH-BU.
“You know it is impossible”: JH to JGN, Nov. 23, 1876, reel 6, frame 432, JH-BU.
“because it placed us”: Dennett, John Hay, 137.
To supplement: JGN to JH, Jan. 18, 1876, box 4, JGN-LC.
“I think I have the foundation”: JGN to JH, Nov. 11, 1876, box 4, JGN-LC; JGN to JH, Sept. 3, 1875, reel 9, frames 746–48, JH-BU.
“I shall get a carpenter”: JH to JGN, Feb. 28, 1878, reel 6, frame 452, JH-BU.
“breaking down with the nervous fatigue”: JH to JGN, Aug. 10, 1885, reel 6, frame 941, JH-BU.
“The two would never divulge”: Helen Nicolay, Lincoln’s Secretary, 283.
“I write with great labor”: JH to JGN, Aug. 9, 1877, reel 6, frame 443, JH-BU.
“if nothing happens adversely”: Ibid.
“however brave”: Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy, 119.
“The faith is true and adorable”: Holmes, “Soldier’s Faith.”
“For those who knew”: Page, Red Rock, viii.
“death has no power”: Faust, This Republic of Suffering, 269.
“I will try to tackle it”: JH to JGN, Jan. 17, 1885, reel 6, frame 908, JH-BU.