by Joshua Zeitz
First published 2014
Joshua Zeitz examines Abraham Lincoln's presidency through the experiences of his two private secretaries, John Hay and John Nicolay. These young men held unprecedented access to the president and witnessed every major moment of his administration. They sat with Lincoln as he signed the Emancipation Proclamation and accompanied him to Gettysburg. They shared his literary interests and absorbed his frustrations over military defeats. After the assassination, Hay and Nicolay became the primary architects of Lincoln's historical reputation. They wrote the official biography that established the martyred president as a humble frontier lawyer who saved the Union and freed the slaves. Their version insisted that slavery, not states' rights, caused the Civil War. Zeitz draws from personal letters, diary entries, and memoirs to reveal how these gatekeepers constructed the Lincoln mythology that Americans still embrace today. The book traces both the political drama of wartime Washington and the personal growth of two young men who found themselves at the center of history.
Genres: biography, historical-fiction, 20th-century, american, 19th-century, american-history
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, historical-fiction
Setting: Gettysburg, Washington
Period: Civil War, Lincoln Administration
400 pages · Hardcover · Viking