Diary of John Hay: Tuesday, December 15, 1863

The President took Stoddard, Nicolay and me to Ford’s with him to see Falstaff in Henry IV. Dixon came in after a while. Hackett was most admirable. The President criticised his reading of a passage where Hackett said, “mainly thrust at me,” the President thinking it should read “mainly thrust at me.” I told the President I thought he was wrong; that “mainly” merely meant “strongly,” “fiercely.” The President thinks the dying speech of Hotspur an unnatural and unworthy thing — as who does not. . . .

SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 141; Roy Prentice Basler, A Touchstone for Greatness: Essays, Addresses, and Occasional Pieces about Abraham Lincoln, p. 217

John Hay to John G. Nicolay: September 11, 1863

Executive Mansion,

Washington, September 11, 1863.

MY DEAR NICOLAY:

A week or so ago I got frightened at

“The brow so haggard, the chin so peaked,

Fronting me silent in the glass,”

and sending for Stoddard (who had been giving the northern watering places for the last two months a model of high breeding and unquestionable deportment), I left for a few days at Long Branch and two or three more at Providence. I was at the Commencement at Brown University, and made a small chunk of a talk. I only staid a little over a week, and came back feeling heartier.

I must be in Warsaw early in October on account of family affairs. As I infer from your letter that you cannot return before November, or, as Judge Otto says, before December, I will have to give the reins up for a few days to Stoddard and Howe again. I hope the daring youth will not reduplicate the fate of Phaeton.

Washington is as dull here as an obsolete almanac. The weather is not so bad as it was. The nights are growing cool. But there is nobody here except us old stagers who can't get away. We have some comfortable dinners and some quiet little orgies on whiskey and cheese in my room. And the time slides away.

We are quietly jolly over the magnificent news from all round the board. Rosecrans won a great and bloodless victory at Chattanooga which he had no business to win. The day that the enemy ran, he sent a mutinous message to Halleck complaining of the very things that have secured us the victories, and foreshadowing only danger and defeat.

You may talk as you please of the Abolition Cabal directing affairs from Washington; some well-meaning newspapers advise the President to keep his fingers out of the military pie, and all that sort of thing. The truth is, if he did, the pie would be a sorry mess. The old man sits here and wields like a backwoods Jupiter the bolts of war and the machinery of government with a hand equally steady and equally firm.

His last letter is a great thing. Some hideously bad rhetoric — some indecorums that are infamous, — yet the whole letter takes its solid place in history as a great utterance of a great man. The whole Cabinet could not have tinkered up a letter which could have been compared with it. He can rake a sophism out of its hole better than all the trained logicians of all schools. I do not know whether the nation is worthy of him for another term. I know the people want him. There is no mistaking that fact. But politicians are strong yet, and he is not their “kind of a cat.” I hope God won't see fit to scourge us for our sins by any one of the two or three most prominent candidates on the ground.

I hope you are getting well and hearty. Next winter will be the most exciting and laborious of all our lives. It will be worth any other ten.

SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 100-3; For the whole diary entry see Tyler Dennett, Editor, Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and letters of John Hay, p. 90-1; Michael Burlingame, Editor, At Lincoln’s Side: John Yay’s Civil War Correspondence and Selected Writings, p. 53-4.

John Hay to John G. Nicolay, August 27, 1862

Executive Mansion,

Washington, Aug. 27, 1862.

MY DEAR SIR:

Where is your scalp? If anybody believes you don't wish you were at home, he can get a pretty lively bet out of me. I write this letter firing into the air. If it hits you, well. It will not hurt so much as a Yancton’s rifle. If in God's good Providence your long locks adorn the lodge of an aboriginal warrior and the festive tomtom is made of your stretched hide, I will not grudge the time thus spent, for auld lang syne. In fancy's eye I often behold you the centre and ornament of a wildwood circle, delighting the untutored children of the forest with Tuscan melodies. But by the rivers of Babylon you refuse to yield to dalliance — yea, you weep when you remember Washington whose magnificent distances are nevermore for you.

Washington is not at the present speaking an alluring village. Everybody is out of town and nobody cares for nobody that is here. One exception tres charmante which is French for devilish tidy. Miss Census Kennedy is here with a pretty cousin from Baltimore which Ellicott S—— is quite spooney about her while I am languidly appreciative.

Grover’s Theatre re-opens next Saturday and Dahlgren breathes again. Some pretty women are engaged, to whom I am promised introductions. There is also a new Club House established in the city, to which I have sometimes gone to satisfy the ragings of famine. I think you will patronize it extensively when you come back. I ride on horseback mornings. I ride the off horse. He has grown so rampagious by being never driven (I have no time to drive) that no one else whom I can find can ride him. Stoddard, Boutwell and Leutze ride sometimes the near horse.

I am yours,

[JOHN HAY.]

SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 68-70; Tyler Dennett, Editor, Lincoln and the Civil War: in the Diaries and letters of John Hay, p. 44; Michael Burlingame, Editor, At Lincoln’s Side: John Hay’s Civil War Correspondence and Selected Writings, p. 25.

John Hay to John G. Nicolay, August 24, 1861

Washington, Aug. 24 (1861).

DEAR GEORGE:

Yours of the 22d received this morning. I don't wish to hurry you, but write simply to say that Dr. Pope’s prediction has been realized.

I am flat on my back with bilious fever. I had a gay, old delirium yesterday, but am some better to-day. Doctor thinks I will be round in a day or two. Bob Lincoln came this morning bringing positive orders from his mother for me to join her at New York for an extension of her trip. Of course I can't go — as things look. There is no necessity whatever for you to return just now. There is no business in the office, and Stoddard is here all the time. He can do as well as either of us. As soon as I get able I shall leave. The air here is stifling. You had better stay as long as you like, for there is nothing but idleness here. As soon as I get on my pins I shall start. It will be a sort of breach of etiquette, but as Joe Gargery feelingly observes: — “Manners is manners, but your ’elth ’s your ’elth!”

Don't come till you get ready.

SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 39; Michael Burlingtame, Editor, At Lincoln’s Side: John Hay’s Civil War Correspondence and Selected Writings, p.12-3.