Lincoln's boys : John Hay, John Nicolay, and the war for Lincoln's image
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 369-374) and index.

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 witnessed more history, and knew Lincoln better than anyone outside of the president's immediate family. 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. Hay and Nicolay fought to preserve a narrative that saw slavery as the sole cause of the Civil War. Zeitz shows how the image of a humble man who rose from obscurity to become a storied wartime leader and emancipator is very much their creation.