Lincoln’s Legacy: "The boys" who won the war for Lincoln's place in history

Abraham Lincoln is remembered in U.S. history as one of the nation’s greatest presidents, whose steadfast leadership in the Civil War helped preserve the union and free the slaves. But Lincoln wasn’t always held in such high esteem – and the men history might thank for that blazed a trail that leads straight to modern-day presidential advisers such as Karl Rove and David Axelrod.

In the years following the president’s assassination, Lincoln’s closest aides John Hay and John Nicolay were waging a full-out public relations war to counter what was then a popular notion that Lincoln was a “failed president,” according to historian Joshua Zeitz. They started what is now a well-established process by which presidential aides work to craft a president’s lasting narrative.

“They were riding against a current in the 1870s and 80s this sort of elite opinion about Lincoln that he was a nice man but a bad president,” Zeitz told “Top Line.” “It was their mandate to correct that.”

In the new book, “Lincoln’s Boys: John Hay, John Nicolay, and the War for Lincoln’s Image,” Zeitz examines the role that these two young advisers, whom Lincoln referred to as “his boys,” had in shaping Lincoln’s legacy.

“They were the White House secretaries, which is a term back in the 19th Century that would be something akin today to a combination of chief of staff, press secretary, political director, body man, all rolled up into one,” Zeitz said. “He called them the boys, because they were very young when he worked for them and lived in the White House and they were in their early to mid-20s.”

As two of Lincoln’s closest confidants, Hay and Nicolay were granted exclusive rights to all of his presidential papers following his death and worked to weave memories of the late president’s character and integrity into the official narrative.

Most of the stories we know about Lincoln’s White House today, Zeitz said, came from Hay and Nicolay originally.

“Whether its Lincoln's frequent tussles with George McLellan … as well as the process behind which the Gettysburg Address was written and delivered and the process behind it, most of that comes from them,” he said.

Second Inaugural Address Washington, D.C. March 4, 1865

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan--to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

Gettysburg Address

Abraham Lincoln

The Bliss copy, once owned by the family of Colonel Alexander Bliss, Bancroft's stepson and publisher of "Autograph Leaves", is the only manuscript to which Lincoln affixed his signature.

Address delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg.

Don't just look at the words, think about the thought behind them.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Jack

I don't know what made me think of it this morning, but my thoughts went back many years, to the Crystal Bay Club, North Shore, Lake Tahoe. That was in the days when there was a slow, two-lane road around the lake, a Summer resort, many places closed for the Winter.

The North shore had a few casinos, as did the South shore.

I worked at the Nevada Lodge, first Winter it had been opened, and had a room under the Crystal Bay Club, which was right across the street, nice. Since there weren't many places open, we spent most of our time in the Crystal Bay Club. I got to know the bartender there well, Jack, only his last name is forgotten. Don't know why, but we called him Homer, Homer Lipschitz.

 In the mornings a crowd of us would often go to someones home nearby, around the lake, fixed great breakfasts, had some really nice times. The lake was beautiful in those days, before the Winter Olympics and all the crowds and new construction.

Back to Jack, or Homer. One shift at the club, he had a heart attack and ended up in the hospital in Carson City. As the story goes, when he came to and woke up some hours later, his wife was on one side of his bed, and his girlfriend on the other. He said he just closed his eyes and went back to sleep. Never did hear how the story ended, but knew the best part.