Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. Lincoln led the nation through the American Civil War, its bloodiest war and its greatest moral and political crisis, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, modernized the U. S. economy. Born in Kentucky, Lincoln grew up on the frontier in a poor family. Self-educated, he became Whig Party leader, state legislator and Congressman, he left government to resume his law practice, but angered by the success of Democrats in opening the prairie lands to slavery, reentered politics in 1854. He became a leader in the new Republican Party and gained national attention in 1858 for debating and losing to national Democratic leader Stephen A. Douglas in a Senate campaign, he ran for President in 1860, sweeping the North and winning. Southern pro-slavery elements took his win as proof that the North was rejecting the Constitutional rights of Southern states to practice slavery.
They began the process of seceding from the union. To secure its independence, the new Confederate States of America fired on Fort Sumter, one of the few U. S. forts in the South. Lincoln called up volunteers and militia to restore the Union; as the leader of the moderate faction of the Republican Party, Lincoln confronted Radical Republicans, who demanded harsher treatment of the South. Lincoln fought the factions by pitting them against each other, by distributing political patronage, by appealing to the American people, his Gettysburg Address became an iconic call for nationalism, equal rights and democracy. He suspended habeas corpus, he averted British intervention by defusing the Trent Affair. Lincoln supervised the war effort, including the selection of generals and the naval blockade that shut down the South's trade; as the war progressed, he maneuvered to end slavery, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Lincoln managed his own re-election campaign, he sought to reconcile his damaged nation by avoiding retribution against the secessionists.
A few days after the Battle of Appomattox Court House, he was shot by John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, on April 14, 1865, died the following day. Abraham Lincoln is remembered as the United States' martyr hero, he is ranked both by scholars and the public as among the greatest U. S. presidents. Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, as the second child of Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in a one-room log cabin on Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky, he was a descendant of Samuel Lincoln, an Englishman who migrated from Hingham, Norfolk, to its namesake Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1638. Samuel's grandson and great-grandson began the family's westward migration, passing through New Jersey and Virginia. Lincoln's paternal grandfather and namesake, Captain Abraham Lincoln, moved the family from Virginia to Jefferson County, Kentucky, in the 1780s. Captain Lincoln was killed in an Indian raid in 1786, his children, including eight-year-old Thomas, Abraham's father, witnessed the attack.
Thomas worked at odd jobs in Kentucky and in Tennessee, before settling with members of his family in Hardin County, Kentucky, in the early 1800s. Lincoln's mother, Nancy, is assumed to have been the daughter of Lucy Hanks, although no record documents this. Thomas and Nancy married on June 12, 1806, in Washington County, moved to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, they produced three children: Sarah, born on February 10, 1807. Thomas Lincoln leased farms in Kentucky. Thomas became embroiled in legal disputes, lost all but 200 acres of his land in court disputes over property titles. In 1816, the family moved to Indiana, where the survey process was more reliable and land titles were more secure. Indiana was a "free" territory, they settled in an "unbroken forest" in Hurricane Township, Perry County. In 1860, Lincoln noted that the family's move to Indiana was "partly on account of slavery", but due to land title difficulties. In Kentucky and Indiana, Thomas worked as a farmer and carpenter, he owned farms, town lots and livestock, paid taxes, sat on juries, appraised estates, served on country slave patrols, guarded prisoners.
Thomas and Nancy were members of a Separate Baptists church, which forbade alcohol and slavery. Overcoming financial challenges, Thomas obtained clear title to 80 acres of land in what became known as the Little Pigeon Creek Community. On October 5, 1818, Nancy Lincoln died of milk sickness, leaving 11-year-old Sarah in charge of a household that included her father, 9-year-old Abraham, Dennis Hanks, Nancy's 19-year-old orphaned cousin; those who knew Lincoln recalled that he was distraught over his sister's death on January 20, 1828, while giving birth to a stillborn son. On December 2, 1819, Thomas married Sarah "Sally" Bush Johnston, a widow from Elizabethtown, with three children of her own. Abraham became close to his stepmother, whom he referred t
Petersen House
The Petersen House is a 19th-century federal style row house located at 516 10th Street NW in Washington, D. C. On April 15, 1865, United States President Abraham Lincoln died there after being shot the previous evening at Ford's Theatre, located across the street; the house was built in 1849 by a German tailor. Future Vice-President John C. Breckinridge, a friend of the Lincoln family, once rented this house in 1852. In 1865, it served as a boarding house, it has served as a museum since the 1930s. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd were attending a performance of Our American Cousin when John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Southern sympathizer, entered the box and shot the President in the back of the head. Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris were in the box with the Lincolns, Rathbone suffered serious stab wounds while trying to prevent Booth's escape. Doctors including Charles Leale and Charles Sabin Taft examined Lincoln in the box before having him carried across the street to the Petersen House, where boarder Henry Safford directed them inside.
Physicians continually removed blood clots which formed over the wound and poured out the excess brain fluid and brain matter from where the bullet had entered Lincoln's head in order to relieve pressure on the brain. However, the external and internal hemorrhaging continued throughout the night. During the night and early morning, guards patrolled outside to prevent onlookers from coming inside the house. Lincoln's Cabinet members and various members of Congress were allowed to see the President. Lincoln died in the house on April 15, 1865, at 7:22 a.m. aged 56. Individuals in the room when he died included his son Robert Todd Lincoln, Senator Charles Sumner, generals Henry Wager Halleck, Richard James Oglesby and Montgomery C. Meigs, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Booth was located in Virginia 11 days and was shot by Union forces, dying two hours later. Since 1933, the National Park Service has maintained it as a historical museum, recreating the scene at the time of Lincoln's death; the bed that Lincoln occupied and other items from the bedroom had been bought by Chicago collector, Charles F. Gunther, are now owned by and on display at the Chicago History Museum.
However, replicas have taken their places. The bloodstained pillow and pillowcases are the ones used by Lincoln. Today, the Petersen House is administered by the National Park Service as part of the Ford's Theatre National Historic Site; the house is open to visitors daily from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is free, but requires a time ticket
Robby Benson
Robin David Segal, known by the stage name Robby Benson, is an American actor, musician, producer, writer and educator. He is known as the voice of Beast in the Disney animated film Beauty and the Beast and its numerous sequels and spin-offs, directed several episodes of the sitcom Friends. Benson was born in Dallas, the son of Freda Ann, a singer and business promotions manager, Jerry Segal, a writer, his family is Jewish. Benson was raised in New York City and took his mother's maiden name as his stage name when he was 10. Benson made his film debut with an uncredited role in Wait Until Dark as the Boy Tossing Ball and his Broadway debut in The Rothschilds, he had an appearance in a 1971 commercial for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups alongside Donny Most who would co-star in Happy Days. Benson had an early role on the daytime soap Search for Tomorrow; as a film actor, Benson was well known for teenage roles in coming-of-age films, such as 1972's Jory, 1973's Jeremy, as Billy Joe McAllister in 1976's Ode to Billy Joe.
In 1975, Benson appeared in Death Be Not Lucky Lady. That year, he screen tested for the role of Luke Skywalker in "Star Wars", a role which went to Mark Hamill. In 1977, Benson starred in One on the TV movie The Death of Richie. In 1978, he co-starred in The End and Ice Castles, co-starring Lynn Holly Johnson, a U. S. national figure skating medalist. Benson, who had never ice skated before, learned to skate in order to film the movie, which had numerous skating scenes, including ice hockey. In 1980, Benson starred opposite Linda Grovenor in Die Laughing; the same year, Benson starred in the movie Tribute opposite Jack Lemmon. In 1981, he costarred in the film The Chosen, based on the book of the same name by Chaim Potok; the New York Times gave the film a mixed review, but noted that Benson's character was "full of a gentle inquisitiveness that cannot help but win the audience's sympathy." Benson played Olympic 10,000-meter gold medalist Billy Mills in the 1983 film Running Brave. In 1991, he starred as the voice of Beast in the acclaimed animated Disney film Beauty and the Beast.
In the 1990s he voiced lead character J. T. Marsh on the acclaimed sci-fi cartoon series Exosquad, his 2007 novel Who Stole the Funny?: A Novel of Hollywood landed Benson on the LA Times Bestseller list. Benson's medical memoir I'm Not Dead... Yet! was released in June 2012. Benson has been a professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, the University of Utah and the University of South Carolina, it was announced he would serve as a professor of Practice in the fall of 2013 at Indiana University. Benson left the university after the Spring 2016 semester. Benson married singer and actress Karla DeVito on July 11, 1982; the pair met. Together they have daughter Lyric and son Zephyr. Doctors diagnosed Benson with a heart murmur when he was a teenager, underwent the first of four open heart surgeries in 1984 to fix a diagnosed heart valve defect, he is an activist and fundraiser for heart research, which, in 2004, led him to write the book and music for an original Off-Broadway play called Open Heart, in which he starred.
He practices Transcendental Meditation. White Hot Modern Love Family Album - 4 episodes 1.3 "Guardian Angel" 1.4 "Winter, Summer or Fall All You Gotta Do Is Call..." 1.5 "Salon, Auf Wiedersehn, Goodbye" 1.6 "Will You Still Feed Me?" Evening Shade - 8 episodes 3.14 "Private School" 3.22 "Teaching Is a Good Thing" 3.24 "The Graduation" 4.8 "Wood and Evan's Excellent Adventure" 4.11 "Chain of Fools" 4.12 "Sleepless in Arkansas" 4.14 "The People's Choice" Monty - 2 episodes 1.3 "The Son Also Rises" 1.6 "Baby Talk" Muddling Through - 2 episodes 1.2 "Let It Be Normal" 1.5 "Second Time's the Charm" Good Advice - 2 episodes 2.3 "Divorce, Egyptian Style" 2.12 "Lights, Friction!" The George Wendt Show - 1 episode 1.2 "A Need for See" Bringing Up Jack - 1 episode Thunder Alley - 21 episodes 1.2 "The Love Triangle" 1.4 "Girls' Night Out" 1.5 "Bloodsuckers" 1.6 "Happy Endings" 2.1 "Never Say Die" 2.2 "Speak No Evil" 2.3 "Easy Money" 2.4 "Get a Job" 2.5 "First Date" 2.6 "Give'Em Hell, Bobbi" 2.7 "Sex, Lies & Popcorn" 2.8 "The Garage Sale" 2.9 "Accidentally at First Sight" 2.10 "Are We There Yet?"
2.12 "The Trouble with Harry" 2.13 "Workin' Man's Blues" 2.14 "A Little Me Time" 2.15 "I Am Spartacus" 2.17 "Just a Vacation" 2.18 "Buzz Off, Buzzard Boy" 2.19 "No Swing Set" Dream On - 1 episodes 6.1 "Try Not to Remember" Ellen - 25 episodes 3.1 "Shake and Rumble" 3.2 "These Successful Friends of Mine" 3.3 "The Shower Scene" 3.4 "The Bridges of L. A. County" 3.5 "Hello, I Must Be Going" 3.6 "Trick or Treat - Who Cares?" 3.7 "She Ain't Friendly, She's My Mother" 3.8 "Salad Days" 3.9 "The Movie Show" 3.10 "What's Up, Ex-Doc?" 3.11 "Ellen's Choice" 3.12 "Do You Fear What I Fear?" 3.13 "Horschak's Law" 3.14 "Morgan, P. I." 3.15 "Oh, Sweet Rapture" 3.16 "Witness" 3.17 "Ellen: With Child" 3.18 "Lobster Diary" 3.19 "Two Ring Circus" 3.20 "A Penney Saved..."
Lincoln Tomb
The Lincoln Tomb is the final resting place of the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, three of their four sons, Edward and Thomas. It is located in Oak Ridge Cemetery in Illinois. Constructed of granite, the tomb has a single-story rectangular base, surmounted by an obelisk, with a semicircular receiving room entrance-way, on one end, semicircular crypt or burial room on the opposite side. Four flights of balustraded stairs—two flanking the entrance at the front and two at the rear—lead to a level terrace; the balustrade extends around the terrace to form a parapet where near the center are several statues located at the base of the obelisk. The obelisk rises 117 feet -high. A bronze reproduction of sculptor Gutzon Borglum's head of Lincoln in the U. S. Capitol rests on a pedestal in front of the entrance way. Inside the ground level entrance is a rotunda with connecting hallways to the crypt. Marble is used throughout the interior and several well-known, specially cast statues of Lincoln are displayed.
A stained glass window and flags adorn the crypt. At the close of the ceremonies and events marking Lincoln's death, his body was placed in a nearby receiving tomb and in the state tomb; the mausoleum is owned and administered by the State of Illinois as Lincoln Tomb State Historic Site. It was designated one of the first National Historic Landmarks in 1960, thus became one of the first sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966, when that designation was created. On April 15, 1865, the day President Lincoln died, a group of Springfield citizens formed the National Lincoln Monument Association and spearheaded a drive for funds to construct a memorial or tomb. Upon arrival of the funeral train on May 3, Lincoln lay in state in the Illinois State Capitol for one night. After funeral and burial services the next day, his coffin was placed in a receiving vault at Oak Ridge Cemetery, the site Mrs. Lincoln requested for burial. In December, her husband's remains were removed to a temporary vault not far from the proposed memorial site.
The location of the temporary vault is today marked with a small granite marker on the hill behind the current tomb. In 1871, three years after laborers had begun constructing the tomb, the body of Lincoln and those of the three youngest of his sons were placed in crypts in the unfinished structure. In 1874, upon completion of the memorial, designed by Larkin Goldsmith Mead, Lincoln's remains were interred in a marble sarcophagus in the center of a chamber known as the "catacombs," or burial room. In 1876, after two Chicago criminals failed in an attempt to steal Lincoln's body and hold it for ransom, the National Lincoln Monument Association hid it in another part of the memorial, first under wood and other debris and buried in the ground within the tomb; when Mrs. Lincoln died in 1882, her remains were placed with those of Lincoln, but in 1887 both bodies were reburied in a brick vault beneath the floor of the burial room. By 1895, the year the State acquired the memorial, it had fallen into disrepair.
During a rebuilding and restoration program from 1899–1901, all five caskets were moved to a nearby subterranean vault. Following completion of the restoration, State officials returned them to the burial room and placed that of Lincoln in the sarcophagus it had occupied in 1874–76. Within a few months, however, at the request of Robert Todd Lincoln, the President's only surviving son, Lincoln's remains were moved to their final resting place - a concrete vault 10 feet below the surface of the burial room. In 1930–31 the State reconstructed the interior of the memorial in an Art Deco style. Rededicated in the year by President Hoover, it has undergone little change since that time; the Lincoln Tomb was designated a National Historic Landmark on December 19, 1960, listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. The tomb is in the center of a 12½ acre plot. Constructed of granite from Biddeford, Maine dressed at Quincy, Massachusetts, it has a rectangular base surmounted by a 117-foot -high obelisk and a semicircular entrance way.
A bronze reproduction of sculptor Gutzon Borglum's head of Lincoln in the U. S. Capitol rests on a pedestal in front of the entrance way. Four flights of balustraded stairs—two flanking the entrance at the front and two at the rear—lead to a level terrace; the balustrade extends around the terrace to form a parapet. Open to the public, the terrace has since been closed due to safety concerns. In the center of the terrace, a large and ornate base supports the obelisk. On the walls of the base are 37 hewn stones, cut to represent raised shields, each engraved with the name of a State at the time the tomb was built; each shield is connected to another by two raised bands, thus the group forms an unbroken chain encircling the base. Four bronze statues adorn the corners of the latter, they represent the infantry, navy and cavalry of the Civil War period. In front of the obelisk and above the entrance stands a full-length statue of Lincoln; the interior of the memorial, constructed of marble from Minnesota, Massachusetts, Utah, Spain and Belgium, contains a rotunda, a burial room, connecting corridors.
A replica of the Daniel Chester French statue in the Lincoln Memorial, in Washington, D. C. dominates the entrance foyer. The walls of the rotunda are decorated with 16 marble pilasters, which are separated by marble panels; the pilasters symbolize the 15 Presidents who preceded him. The room contains 36 bronze panels, one for each State at the time of Lincoln's death; the ceiling is of palladium leaf. Corridors lead from the rotunda to the burial room at the
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was assassinated by well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865, while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D. C. Shot in the head as he watched the play, Lincoln died the following day at 7:22 am, in the Petersen House opposite the theater, he was the first U. S. president to be assassinated, Lincoln's funeral and burial marked an extended period of national mourning. Occurring near the end of the American Civil War, the assassination was part of a larger conspiracy intended by Booth to revive the Confederate cause by eliminating the three most important officials of the United States government. Conspirators Lewis Powell and David Herold were assigned to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward, George Atzerodt was tasked with killing Vice President Andrew Johnson. Beyond Lincoln's death the plot failed: Seward was only wounded and Johnson's would-be attacker lost his nerve. After a dramatic initial escape, Booth was killed at the climax of a 12-day manhunt.
Powell, Herold and Mary Surratt were hanged for their roles in the conspiracy. John Wilkes Booth, born in Maryland into a family of prominent stage actors, had by the time of the assassination become a famous actor and national celebrity in his own right, he was an outspoken Confederate sympathizer. In March 1864, Ulysses S. Grant, commander of the Union armies, suspended the exchange of prisoners of war with the Confederate Army to increase pressure on the manpower-starved South. Booth conceived a plan to kidnap Lincoln in order to blackmail the North into resuming prisoner exchanges,:130–4 and recruited Samuel Arnold, George Atzerodt, David Herold, Michael O'Laughlen, Lewis Powell, John Surratt to help him. Surratt's mother, Mary Surratt, left her tavern in Surrattsville and moved to a house in Washington, D. C. where Booth became a frequent visitor. While Booth and Lincoln were not acquainted, Lincoln had seen Booth at Ford's in 1863.:419 After the assassination, actor Frank Mordaunt wrote that Lincoln admired Booth, whom Lincoln had invited to visit the White House.
Booth attended Lincoln's second inauguration on March 4, writing in his diary afterwards: "What an excellent chance I had, if I wished, to kill the President on Inauguration day!":174,437n.41On March 17, Booth and the other conspirators planned to abduct Lincoln as he returned from a play at Campbell Military Hospital. But Lincoln did not go instead attending a ceremony at the National Hotel. On April 3, Virginia, the Confederate capital, fell to the Union Army. On April 9 the General-in-Chief of the Confederate States Army Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to the Commanding General of the United States Army Ulysses S. Grant and his Army of the Potomac after the Battle of Appomattox Court House. Confederate President Jefferson Davis and other Confederate officials had fled, but Booth continued to believe in the Confederate cause and sought a way to salvage it.:728 There are various theories about Booth's motivations. In a letter to his mother, he wrote of his desire to avenge the South.
Doris Kearns Goodwin has endorsed the idea that another factor was Booth's rivalry with his well-known older brother, actor Edwin Booth, a loyal Unionist. David S. Reynolds believes Booth admired the abolitionist John Brown. On April 11, Booth attended Lincoln's speech at the White House in which Lincoln promoted voting rights for blacks; that is the last speech he will give." He urged Lewis Powell to shoot Lincoln on the spot, when Powell refused for fear of the crowd, said to David Herold, "By God, I'll put him through.":91 According to Ward Hill Lamon, three days before his death Lincoln related a dream in which he wandered the White House searching for the source of mournful sounds: I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards. "Who is dead in the White House?" I demanded of one of the soldiers, "The President," was his answer.
For months Lincoln had looked pale and haggard, but on the morning of the assassination he told people how happy he was. First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln felt such talk could bring bad luck.:346 Lincoln told his cabinet that he had dreamed of being on a "singular and indescribable vessel, moving with great rapidity toward a dark and indefinite shore", that he'd had the same dream before "nearly every great and important event of the War" such as the victories at Antietam, Murfreesboro and Vicksburg. On April 14, Booth's morning started at midnight, he wrote his mother that all was well, but that he was "in haste". In his diary, he wrote that "Our cause being lost, something decisive and great must be done".:728:346While visiting Ford's Theatre around noon to pick up his mail, Booth learned that Lincoln and Grant were to see Our American Cousin there that night. This provided him with an good
John Hay
John Milton Hay was an American statesman and official whose career in government stretched over half a century. Beginning as a private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln, Hay's highest office was United States Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Hay was an author and biographer and wrote poetry and other literature throughout much of his life. Born in Indiana to an anti-slavery family that moved to Illinois when he was young, Hay showed great potential, his family sent him to Brown University. After graduation in 1858, Hay read law in his uncle's office in Springfield, adjacent to that of Lincoln. Hay worked for Lincoln's successful presidential campaign and became one of his private secretaries at the White House. Throughout the American Civil War, Hay was close to Lincoln and stood by his deathbed after the President was shot at Ford's Theatre. In addition to his other literary works, Hay co-authored with John George Nicolay a multi-volume biography of Lincoln that helped shape the assassinated president's historical image.
After Lincoln's death, Hay spent several years at diplomatic posts in Europe worked for the New-York Tribune under Horace Greeley and Whitelaw Reid. Yet, Hay remained active in politics, from 1879 to 1881 served as Assistant Secretary of State. Afterward, he remained in the private sector, until President McKinley, for whom he had been a major backer, made him Ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1897. Hay became Secretary of State the following year. Hay served for seven years as Secretary of State, under President McKinley, after McKinley's assassination, under Theodore Roosevelt. Hay was responsible for negotiating the Open Door Policy, which kept China open to trade with all countries on an equal basis, with international powers. By negotiating the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty with the United Kingdom, the Hay–Herrán Treaty with Colombia, the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty with the newly-independent Republic of Panama, Hay cleared the way for the building of the Panama Canal. John Milton Hay was born in Salem, Indiana, on October 8, 1838.
He was the third son of the former Helen Leonard. Charles Hay, born in Lexington, hated slavery and moved to the North in the early 1830s. A doctor, he practiced in Salem. Helen's father, David Leonard, had moved his family west from Assonet, Massachusetts, in 1818, but died en route to Vincennes and Helen relocated to Salem in 1830 to teach school, they married there in 1831. Charles was not successful in Salem, moved, with his wife and children, to Warsaw, Illinois, in 1841. John attended the local schools, in 1849 his uncle Milton Hay invited John to live at his home in Pittsfield, Pike County, attend a well-regarded local school, the John D. Thomson Academy. Milton was a friend of Springfield attorney Abraham Lincoln and had read law in the firm Stuart and Lincoln. In Pittsfield, John first met John Nicolay, at the time a 20-year-old newspaperman. Once John Hay completed his studies there, the 13-year-old was sent to live with his grandfather in Springfield and attend school there, his parents and uncle Milton sent him to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, alma mater of his late maternal grandfather.
Hay enrolled at Brown in 1855. Although he enjoyed college life, he did not find it easy: his Western clothing and accent made him stand out. Hay gained a reputation as a star student and became a part of Providence's literary circle that included Sarah Helen Whitman and Nora Perry, he experimented with hashish. Hay received his Master of Arts degree in 1858, was, like his grandfather before him, Class Poet, he returned to Illinois. Milton Hay had moved his practice to Springfield, John became a clerk in his firm, where he could study law. Milton Hay's firm was one of the most prestigious in Illinois. Lincoln was a rising star in the new Republican Party. Hay recalled an early encounter with Lincoln: He came into the law office where I was reading... with a copy of Harper's Magazine in hand, containing Senator Douglas's famous article on Popular Sovereignty. Lincoln seemed roused by what he had read. Entering the office without a salutation, he said: "This will never do, he puts the moral element out of this question.
It won't stay out." Hay was not a supporter of Lincoln for president until after his nomination in 1860. Hay made speeches and wrote newspaper articles boosting Lincoln's candidacy; when Nicolay, made Lincoln's private secretary for the campaign, found he needed help with the huge amounts of correspondence, Hay worked full-time for Lincoln for six months. After Lincoln was elected, who continued as Lincoln's private secretary, recommended that Hay be hired to assist him at the White House. Lincoln is reported to have said, "We can't take all Illinois with us down to Washington" but "Well, let Hay come". Kushner and Sherrill were dubious about "the story of Lincoln's offhand appointment of Hay" as fitting well into Hay's self-image of never having been an office-seeker, but "poorly into the realities of Springfield politics of the 1860s"—Hay must have expected some reward for handling Lincoln's correspondence for months. Hay biographer John Taliaferro suggests that Lincoln engaged Nicolay and Hay to assist him, rather than more seasoned men, both "out of loyalty and because of the competence and compatibility that his two young aides had demonstrated".
Historian Joshua Zeitz argues that Lincoln was moved to hire Hay when Milton agree
Lincoln in the White House
Lincoln in the White House is a 1939 American biographical short or historical "special" about United States President Abraham Lincoln, highlighting events during his first term of office, from his inaugural speech in 1861 to his delivery of the Gettysburg Address in 1863. Produced by Warner Bros. and directed by William C. McGann, the 21-minute Technicolor film stars Frank McGlynn Sr. a veteran actor who since 1915 had specialized in impersonating Lincoln on both stage and screen. The film begins with Lincoln delivering part of his presidential inaugural speech in Washington, D. C, on March 4, 1861; the next scene, six weeks is in the White House, where the president is talking with his wife Mary. Their young son Tad and Lincoln's assistant John Hay rush in to report that Confederate forces had bombarded Fort Sumter in South Carolina; the president, saddened by the news, kneels with Tad to pray for the nation. The story moves to December 1862, with Lincoln discussing the importance of the Emancipation Proclamation prior to its release.
That scene transitions to July 1863, to Lincoln's cabinet members bickering about the president's war strategy, when news arrives of the Union army's victory at Gettysburg. As the men celebrate, Lincoln comes in to defend again his policies. In the White House, the president plays with Tad on the floor before meeting with a Mrs. Scott, she is there to plead for the life of her son, a young soldier, to be executed for falling asleep while on sentry duty with the Wisconsin infantry at Gettysburg. Lincoln's secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, now enters and threatens to resign if the soldier is pardoned. Lincoln calms Stanton and assures Mrs. Scott he will pardon her son; the film now advances to November 1863. Tad is ill, his father and the attending doctor worry at his bedside; the president fears for his son’s life, but he must depart for Gettysburg to take part in the dedication of the battlefield cemetery there. Once at the town, Lincoln stays in the home of attorney David Wills; that evening, while editing his speech for the dedication, the president instructs the army band outside to play "Dixie", a song associated with the American South.
A crowd in the street objects to the choice but begins cheering when the band performs what Lincoln calls a "mighty fine tune". The next day at the ceremony, as celebrated orator Edward Everett concludes his two-hour speech, Lincoln receives a telegram from Mary informing him that Tad is "much improved", news that noticeably relieves the president, he now delivers his own speech, which lasts less than three minutes. At the end of his brief but historic address, the image of Lincoln's face fades out replaced by an American flag fluttering in the wind and accompanied musically by a rousing excerpt from the "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Frank McGlynn Sr. as Abraham Lincoln Dickie Moore as Tad Lincoln John Harron as John Hay, Lincoln's assistant Raymond Brown as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton Erville Alderson as Secretary of State William H. Seward Sibyl Harris as Mrs. Scott Nana Bryant as Mary Todd Lincoln Earl Dwire as David Wills Gordon Hart as Edward Everett Edward LeSaint as The Physician Ian Wolfe as Cabinet Member Costuming is one of the short's "ultra" production values that critics compliment in their 1939 reviews.
Milo Anderson, a costumer for Warner Bros. since 1933, was responsible for the wardrobes in Lincoln in the White House. His work on this project is just one of at least 42 films he "attired" for Warner Bros. between 1937 and the latter months of 1939. Filming the color short was divided into two distinct parts: Wilfrid M. Cline served as chief cinematographer and Natalie Kalmus served as director of Technicolor, a color process that required special patented cameras that studios had to rent from the Technicolor Company; those rentals required that a representative from the company's "Advisory Service" be on site to oversee every production's color "palette". Kalmus was the company's representative on Lincoln in the White House. By 1939, the Technicolor process had improved in quality since its first commercial use in Hollywood productions 17 years earlier. Kalmus therefore worked with Milo Anderson in selecting costumes and with Charles Novi, the short's art director, in choosing rugs, curtains and other set furnishings deemed acceptable to her in both color and tone.
This short is one production in a series of Technicolor two-reel historical "specials" released by Warner Bros. between 1936 and 1940. Four other such color shorts on American history were released by the studio in 1939 after Lincoln in the White House, their subjects include the Sons of Liberty, the Monroe Doctrine, the Bill of Rights, Andrew Jackson. Released in 1939 on February 11—the day before Lincoln's birthday in 1809—the film is one example of Hollywood's ongoing interest in the 1930s in portraying the "The Great Emancipator". Just between 1935 and 1940, Hollywood studios released no fewer than 17 productions with Lincoln as either the central subject or as an important supporting figure. Previews of this "screen miniature" became available to critics and to audiences at select theaters by mid-January 1939, nearly a full month before the film's official release. Were
