Inside Lincoln's White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay

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Southern Illinois University Press Inside Lincoln’s White House The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay Edited by Michael Burlingame and John R. Turner Ettlinger Burlingame and Ettlinger Inside Lincoln’s White House The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay American History / Civil War “The wealth of sources cited will impress even the most jaded scholar. Inside Lincoln’s White House well represents the editorial art, and it deserves its assured status as a standard work. Like the incisive words of John Hay, this edition’s wellwrought lines will endure.”—Journal of Illinois History “[Hay’s] war diary provides fascinating and revealing portraits of Lincoln’s presidency and, especially, of the president himself. Covering the years 1861 to 1864, the diary is particularly detailed and rich for the critical years 1863–64. . . . More than all else, Lincoln’s humanity—his wit, humility, determination, forgiveness , and forbearance—becomes palpable in Hay’s text. Burlingame and Ettlingerhavedoneamagnificenteditorialjob,andtheirrevealingnotesarenearly as informative as the diary itself. Anyone interested in the Lincoln White House and the ‘Ancient,’ as Hay termed it, will greatly profit from this work.”—Choice “Long recognized as an invaluable primary source on Abraham Lincoln’s presidency , John Hay’s Civil War diaries have now been published for the third time and in their definitive form. . . . John R. Turner Ettlinger [has] transcribed the diaries afresh while attempting to restore the passages canceled out by previous editors. . . . The result is the complete text of the diaries with the exception of an occasional word or a few lines that could not be deciphered. . . . While it is doubtful the newly recovered passages will fundamentally alter the way either Hay or Lincoln is seen, they add to the overall authenticity of the diaries for researchers, and they remind casual readers that the historical record is full of emendations, corrections, long pauses, and second thoughts.”—H-Net Reviews Michael Burlingame is a professor of history at Connecticut College. He is the editor of An Oral History of Abraham Lincoln: John G. Nicolay’s Interviews and Essays and Lincoln’s Journalist: John Hay’s Anonymous Writings for the Press, 1860–1864, both available from Southern Illinois University Press. John R. Turner Ettlinger is a professor emeritus at the School of Library and Information Studies, Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Printed in the United States of America Cover illustration: Abraham Lincoln and his assistant presidential secretary, John Hay. Detail from a photograph by Alexander Gardner, November 8, 1863. Courtesy of the Illinois State Historical Library. Southern Illinois University Press 1915 University Press Drive Mail Code 6806 Carbondale, IL 62901 www.siupress.com isbn 0-8093-2262-5 isbn 978-0-8093-2262-6 Cover for CDDC.indd 1 2/18/10 2:42 PM Inside Lincoln's White House ...