Lincolns Boys, Joshua Zeitz
Lincolns Boys, Joshua Zeitz
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Lincoln's Boys
John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln’s Image

Author: Joshua Zeitz

Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner

Unabridged: 13 hr

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 02/04/2014

Synopsis

A timely and intimate look into Abraham Lincoln’s White House through the lives of his two closest aides and confidants

Lincoln’s official secretaries John Hay and John Nicolay enjoyed more access, witnessed more history, and knew Lincoln better than anyone outside of the president’s immediate family. Hay and Nicolay were the gatekeepers of the Lincoln legacy. They read poetry and attendeded the theater with the president, commiserated with him over Union army setbacks, and plotted electoral strategy. They were present at every seminal event, from the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation to Lincoln’s delivery of the Gettysburg Address—and they wrote about it after his death.

In their biography of Lincoln, Hay and Nicolay fought to establish Lincoln’s heroic legacy and to preserve a narrative that saw slavery—not states’ rights—as the sole cause of the Civil War. As Joshua Zeitz shows, the image of a humble man with uncommon intellect who rose from obscurity to become a storied wartime leader and emancipator is very much their creation.

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.

About The Author

Joshua Zeitz has taught American history and politics at Cambridge University, Harvard University, and Princeton University. He is the author of several books on American political and social history and has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New Republic, The Atlantic, Dissent, and American Heritage. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Hoboken, New Jersey.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Peter

“The Boys” called him “the Tycoon” and his wife Mary “the Hellcat” and “Her Satanic Majesty.” One or both were with Lincoln nearly every waking moment from the opening of his presidential campaign until the moment he passed away. Abe’s “secretaries” served as advisers, liaisons, gatekeepers, PR men,......more

Goodreads review by Bill

This is a fascinating story of Abraham Lincoln in which Lincoln himself assumes a supporting role, and the supporting players take the lead. In the process, we get a greater understanding of how Lincoln came to be defined - by those who knew him, and by history. Zeitz begins his book by cautioning th......more

Goodreads review by Steven

John Nicolay and John Hay lived in the White House with President Abraham Lincoln from the beginning to his assassination. This is a story of their lives and, more centrally, of their effort to present an image of Lincoln that, in their view, would do him justice. The work begins with the earlier yea......more

Goodreads review by Dick

This is an excellent book for those who are interested in Lincoln or wonder how it is that Lincoln has become almost a deity in American history. The last time I checked there were some 12,000 books written on Lincoln. After Lincoln's death there were many who wrote about him and their relationship......more

Quotes

"An excellent addition to Civil War collections."--Booklist

A century before Harry Hopkins, Clark Clifford, or Ted Sorensen, John Hay and John Nicolay performed the duties of Presidential aide, advisor, political operative, and confidante. Even the great Abraham Lincoln needed support, and Joshua Zeitz captures perfectly the intimate, interior world of the White House.”
-- David Plouffe, former  White House Senior Advisor

"What a wonderful, welcome book.  Zeitz has pulled off a difficult task -- revealing how the myth of Lincoln came to be without distorting the true greatness of our extraordinary 16th President."
-- Ken Burns (filmmaker)

“Joshua Zeitz’s delightful study of John Hay and John Nicolay interweaves intimate biography, political drama, and the shaping of historical memory to produce an arresting and original narrative. Above all, it reminds us that, thanks to Lincoln’s secretaries, the moral dimensions of the emancipationist Civil War could not be bleached from the historical record by an increasingly fashionable understanding of the struggle as a romantic ‘brothers’ conflict’.”
--Richard Carwardine, author of Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power

“Abraham Lincoln was blessed with truly first-rate biographers in John Nicolay and John Hay, so it is ‘altogether fitting and proper’ that Nicolay and Hay have now attracted a terrific chronicler of their own life and times in Joshua Zeitz.  This fine book traces the extraordinary evolution of Lincoln’s two private secretaries from clerks into tireless historians and rabid keepers of the flame. Historians have long remembered their roles as canny observers of the White House during the Civil War, but this study adds much fascinating new material about their peerless role in crafting and preserving the Lincoln image.”
—Harold Holzer, author of  The Civil War in 50 Objects

“Lincoln's Boys puts flesh and bones on the story of the two young men at the center of Abraham Lincoln's world -- and by extension, at the center of everything.  Beautifully researched and written, it restores to their full stature two figures who may have been young, but left a deep mark upon history.  Highly recommended.”
-- Ted Widmer, former presidential speechwriter and author of Young America: The Flowering of Democracy in New York City

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