Lincoln's White House Secretary

Lincoln's White House Secretary PDF Author: Harold Holzer
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 9780809327539
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
William Osborn Stoddard, Lincoln’s “third secretary” who worked alongside John G. Nicolay and John Hay in the White House from 1861 to 1865, completed his autobiography in 1907, one of more than one hundred books he wrote. An abridged version was published by his son in 1955 as “Lincoln’s Third Secretary: The Memoirs of William O. Stoddard.” In this new, edited version, Lincoln’s White House Secretary: The Adventurous Life of William O. Stoddard, Harold Holzer provides an introduction, afterword, and annotations and includes comments by Stoddard’s granddaughter, Eleanor Stoddard. The elegantly written volume gives readers a window into the politics, life, and culture of the mid-nineteenth century. Stoddard’s bracing writing, eye for detail, and ear for conversation bring a novelistic excitement to a story of childhood observations, young friendships, hardscrabble frontier farming, early hints of the slavery crisis, the workings of the Lincoln administration, and the strange course of war and reunion in the southwest. More than a clerk, Stoddard was an adventurous explorer of American life, a farmer, editor, soldier, and politician. Enhanced by seventeen illustrations, this narrative sympathetically draws the reader into the life and times of Lincoln’s third secretary, adding to our understanding of the events and the larger-than-life figures that shaped history.

Lincoln's White House Secretary

Lincoln's White House Secretary PDF Author: Harold Holzer
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 9780809327539
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
William Osborn Stoddard, Lincoln’s “third secretary” who worked alongside John G. Nicolay and John Hay in the White House from 1861 to 1865, completed his autobiography in 1907, one of more than one hundred books he wrote. An abridged version was published by his son in 1955 as “Lincoln’s Third Secretary: The Memoirs of William O. Stoddard.” In this new, edited version, Lincoln’s White House Secretary: The Adventurous Life of William O. Stoddard, Harold Holzer provides an introduction, afterword, and annotations and includes comments by Stoddard’s granddaughter, Eleanor Stoddard. The elegantly written volume gives readers a window into the politics, life, and culture of the mid-nineteenth century. Stoddard’s bracing writing, eye for detail, and ear for conversation bring a novelistic excitement to a story of childhood observations, young friendships, hardscrabble frontier farming, early hints of the slavery crisis, the workings of the Lincoln administration, and the strange course of war and reunion in the southwest. More than a clerk, Stoddard was an adventurous explorer of American life, a farmer, editor, soldier, and politician. Enhanced by seventeen illustrations, this narrative sympathetically draws the reader into the life and times of Lincoln’s third secretary, adding to our understanding of the events and the larger-than-life figures that shaped history.

Inside Lincoln's White House

Inside Lincoln's White House PDF Author: Michael Burlingame
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809322625
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
On 18 April 1861, assistant presidential secretary John Hay recorded in his diary the report of several women that "some young Virginian long haired swaggering chivalrous of course. . . and half a dozen others including a daredevil guerrilla from Richmond named Ficklin would do a thing within forty eight hours that would ring through the world." The women feared that the Virginian planned either to assassinate or to capture the president. Calling this a "harrowing communication," Hay continued his entry: "They went away and I went to the bedside of the Chief couché. I told him the yarn; he quietly grinned." This is but one of the dramatic entries in Hay’s Civil War diary, presented here in a definitive edition by Michael Burlingame and John R. Turner Ettlinger. Justly deemed the most intimate record we will ever have of Abraham Lincoln in the White House, the Hay diary is, according to Burlingame and Ettlinger, "one of the richest deposits of high-grade ore for the smelters of Lincoln biographers and Civil War historians." While the Cabinet diaries of Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Gideon Welles also shed much light on Lincoln’s presidency, as does the diary of Senator Orville Hickman Browning, none of these diaries has the literary flair of Hay’s, which is, as Lincoln’s friend Horace White noted, as "breezy and sparkling as champagne." An aspiring poet, Hay recorded events in a scintillating style that the lawyer-politician diarists conspicuously lacked. Burlingame and Ettlinger’s edition of the diary is the first to publish the complete text of all of Hay’s entries from 1861 through 1864. In 1939 Tyler Dennett published Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay, which, as Civil War historian Allan Nevins observed, was "rather casually edited." This new edition is essential in part because Dennett omitted approximately 10 percent of Hay’s 1861–64 entries. Not only did the Dennett edition omit important parts of the diaries, it also introduced some glaring errors. More than three decades ago, John R. Turner Ettlinger, then in charge of Special Collections at the Brown University Library, made a careful and literal transcript of the text of the diary, which involved deciphering Hay’s difficult and occasionally obscure writing. In particular, passages were restored that had been canceled, sometimes heavily, by the first editors for reasons of confidentiality and propriety. Ettlinger’s text forms the basis for the present edition, which also incorporates, with many additions and much updating by Burlingame, a body of notes providing a critical apparatus to the diary, identifying historical events and persons.

Inside the White House in War Times

Inside the White House in War Times PDF Author: William Osborn Stoddard
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 9780803292574
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Of the three secretaries who assisted President Abraham Lincoln?John G. Nicolay, John Hay, and William O. Stoddard?only Stoddard wrote an extended memoir about his time in the Executive Mansion. First published in 1890, the book vividly depicts the president?s agonizing reaction to the defeats at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the difficulties encountered (and presented) by Mary Lincoln, the president?s relations with George B. McClellan and other generals, and the anxiety preceding the Merrimack?s epic battle with the Monitor. ø In 1866 Stoddard also penned thirteen ?White House Sketches? about his time in Lincoln?s service. Originally published in an obscure New York newspaper, these essays?never previously collected?supplement Stoddard?s memoir. Together the memoir and sketches provide an intimate look at the sixteenth president during a time of crisis.

Lincoln's White House

Lincoln's White House PDF Author: James B. Conroy
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 9781538113912
Category : Presidents
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Lincoln's White House is the first book devoted to capturing the look, feel, and smell of the executive mansion from Lincoln's inauguration in 1861 to his assassination in 1865.

Lincoln's Other White House

Lincoln's Other White House PDF Author: Elizabeth Smith Brownstein
Publisher: Wiley
ISBN: 9781681620008
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Lincolns spent the summer of 1862 north of the White House at the Soldiers' Home. The lush, cool hill overlooking the squalid capital promised the Lincolns an escape from the ""city of stink."" Despite fears about Lincoln's vulnerability in the secluded place, Lincoln spent a quarter of his presidency at the Soldiers' Home. But until the National Trust for Historic Preservation began restoring the cottage, little had been done to explore this missing link in Lincoln's life. Elizabeth Smith Brownstein fills in a critical gap. Using diaries, letters, and eyewitness accounts, she provides unusual perspectives on Lincoln's relationships, traces the evolution of Lincoln's image, examines the Lincoln marriage, and more. Lincoln's Other White House is a vivid evocation of a turbulent era, and an intimate portrait of the still elusive president.

Lincoln's Boys

Lincoln's Boys PDF Author: Joshua Zeitz
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101638079
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
From the author of the forthcoming Building the Great Society (February 2018), an intimate look into Lincoln’s White House and the aftermath of his death, via the lives of his two closest aides In this timely look into Abraham Lincoln’s White House, and the aftermath of his death, noted historian and political advisor Joshua Zeitz presents a fresh perspective on the sixteenth U.S. president—as seen through the eyes of Lincoln’s two closest aides and confidants, John Hay and John Nicolay. Lincoln’s official secretaries, Hay and Nicolay enjoyed more access, witnessed more history, and knew Lincoln better than anyone outside of the president’s immediate family. They were the gatekeepers of Lincoln’s legacy. Drawing on letters, diaries, and memoirs, Lincoln’s Boys is part political drama and part coming-of-age tale—a fascinating story of friendship, politics, war, and the contest over history and remembrance.

Stanton

Stanton PDF Author: Walter Stahr
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476739307
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 768

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Book Description
"Of the crucial men close to President Lincoln, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (1814-1869) was the most powerful and controversial. Stanton raised, armed, and supervised the army of a million men who won the Civil War. He organized the war effort. He directed military movements from his telegraph office, where Lincoln literally hung out with him ... Now with this worthy complement to the enduring library of biographical accounts of those who helped Lincoln preserve the Union, Stanton honors the indispensable partner of the sixteenth president"--

Behind the Scenes

Behind the Scenes PDF Author: Elizabeth Keckley
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195060843
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Part slave narrative, part memoir, and part sentimental fiction Behind the Scenes depicts Elizabeth Keckley's years as a salve and subsequent four years in Abraham Lincoln's White House during the Civil War. Through the eyes of this black woman, we see a wide range of historical figures and events of the antebellum South, the Washington of the Civil War years, and the final stages of the war.

With Lincoln in the White House

With Lincoln in the White House PDF Author: Michael Burlingame
Publisher: SIU Press
ISBN: 0809388235
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
From the time of Lincoln’s nomination for the presidency until his assassination, John G. Nicolay served as the Civil War president’s chief personal secretary. Nicolay became an intimate of Lincoln and probably knew him as well as anyone outside his own family. Unlike John Hay, his subordinate, Nicolay kept no diary, but he did write several memoranda recording his chief’s conversation that shed direct light on Lincoln. In his many letters to Hay, to his fiancée, Therena Bates, and to others, Nicolay often describes the mood at the White House as well as events there. He also expresses opinions that were almost certainly shaped by the president For this volume, Michael Burlingame includes all of Nicolay’s memoranda of conversations, all of the journal entries describing Lincoln’s activities, and excerpts from most of the nearly three hundred letters Nicolay wrote to Therena Bates between 1860 and 1865. He includes letters and portions of letters that describe Lincoln or the mood at the White House or that give Nicolay’s personal opinions. He also includes letters written by Nicolay while on troubleshooting missions for the president. An impoverished youth, Nicolay was an unlikely candidate for the important position he held during the Civil War. It was only over the strong objections of some powerful people that he became Lincoln’s private secretary after Lincoln’s nomination for the presidency in 1860. Prominent Chicago Republican Herman Kreismann found the appointment of a man so lacking in savoir faire “ridiculous.” Henry Martin Smith, city editor of the Chicago Tribune, called Nicolay’s appointment a national loss. Henry C.Whitney was surprised that the president would appoint a “nobody.” Lacking charm, Nicolay became known at the White House as the “bulldog in the ante-room” with a disposition “sour and crusty.” California journalist Noah Brooks deemed Nicolay a “grim Cerberus of Teutonic descent who guards the last door which opens into the awful presence.” Yet in some ways he was perfectly suited for the difficult job. William O. Stoddard, noting that Nicolay was not popular and could “say 'no'about as disagreeably as any man I ever knew,” still granted that Nicolay served Lincoln well because he was devoted and incorruptible. Stoddard concluded that Nicolay “deserves the thanks of all who loved Mr. Lincoln.” For his part, Nicolay said he derived his greatest satisfaction “from having enjoyed the privilege and honor of being Mr. Lincoln’s intimate and official private secretary, and of earning his cordial friendship and perfect trust.”

All the Great Prizes

All the Great Prizes PDF Author: John Taliaferro
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416597417
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 688

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Book Description
The first full-scale biography of John Hay since 1934: From secretary to Abraham Lincoln to secretary of state for Theodore Roosevelt, Hay was an essential American figure for more than half a century. John Taliaferro’s brilliant biography captures the extraordinary life of Hay, one of the most amazing figures in American history, and restores him to his rightful place. Private secretary to Lincoln and secretary of state to Theodore Roosevelt, Hay was both witness and author of many of the most significant chapters in American history—from the birth of the Republican Party, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, to the prelude to World War I. As an ambassador and statesman, he guided many of the country’s major diplomatic initiatives at the turn of the twentieth century: the Open Door with China, the creation of the Panama Canal, and the establishment of America as a world leader. Hay’s friends are a who’s who of the era: Mark Twain, Horace Greeley, Henry Adams, Henry James, and virtually every president, sovereign, author, artist, power broker, and robber baron of the Gilded Age. His peers esteemed him as “a perfectly cut stone” and “the greatest prime minister this republic has ever known.” But for all his poise and polish, he had his secrets. His marriage to one of the wealthiest women in the country did not prevent him from pursuing the Madame X of Washington society, whose other secret suitor was Hay’s best friend, Henry Adams. All the Great Prizes, the first authoritative biography of Hay in eighty years, renders a rich and fascinating portrait of this brilliant American and his many worlds.