John George Nicolay
John George Nicolay (born February 26, 1832, as Johann Georg in Essingen, Rhenish Bavaria – September 26, 1901) was an American (German-born) biographer, secretary of US President Abraham Lincoln and member of the German branch of the Nicolay family.[1] In 1838, he immigrated to the United States with his father, attended school in Cincinnati. He later went to Illinois, where he edited the Pike County Free Press at Pittsfield, and became a political power in the state. Then he became assistant to the secretary of state of Illinois. While in this position, he met Abraham Lincoln and became his devoted adherent.[2]
In 1861, Lincoln appointed Nicolay to be his private secretary, which was the first official act of his new administration. Nicolay served in this capacity until Lincoln's death in 1865. Shortly before the president's assassination, Lincoln appointed Nicolay to a diplomatic post in France.[3] After the death of the President, Nicolay became United States Consul at Paris, France (1865–69). For some time after his return to the United States, he edited the Chicago Republican.[4] He was Marshal of the United States Supreme Court (1872–87). In 1881, Nicolay wrote The Outbreak of the Rebellion.
Nicolay and John Hay, who had worked alongside Nicolay as assistant secretary to Lincoln, collaborated on the official biography of the 16th President. It appeared in The Century Magazine serially from 1886 to 1890 and was then issued (1890–94) in book form as ten volumes, together with the two-volume Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln. The resulting biography is a definitive resource on Lincoln and his times. Nicolay and Hay also edited Lincoln's Works in twelve volumes (1905). Finally, Personal Traits of Abraham Lincoln was published by Helen Nicolay in 1912.
Nicolay was a founding member of the Literary Society of Washington in 1874, according to a book about the Society written by his daughter, Helen Nicolay. Both Nicolay and Hay were members of long standing in the Society.[5]
In the 1992 documentary Lincoln, the German-born Nicolay is voiced by the Austrian-born actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. In the 2012 film Lincoln, Nicolay is portrayed by Jeremy Strong.
Works [edit]
- A. Lincoln, a history (1890), with John Milton Hay
- Campaigns of the Civil War, Volume 1: The Outbreak of Rebellion (originally published in 1881)
References [edit]
- ^ 'Nicolay - A Preliminary Study of the Descendants of John Jacob Nicolay' by Kay F.Sellers (1945)
- ^
"Nicolay, John George". New International Encyclopedia. 1905. - ^ Doris Kearns Goodwin, Team of Rivals, p. 705.
- ^ Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1900). "Nicolay, John George". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
- ^ Nicolay and Hay are listed in the directory of members of the Society in Helen Nicolay's Sixty Years of the Literary Society, Washington, D.C., 1934. Library of Congress call number PN22.L53 N5. Google Books [1].
External links [edit]
 |
Wikisource has original works written by or about: |
