# John Hay in November 1864: whereabouts and writing

Sources: *Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary* (privately printed, 1908; archive.org `lettersofjohnhay01hayj`), vol. 1 pp. 238-250; Thayer, *Life and Letters of John Hay* (1915), vol. 1 pp. 216-219; Basler, *Collected Works* vol. VIII (1953); *The Lincoln Log* (thelincolnlog.org) entries for 28 Oct.-30 Nov. 1864; Burlingame, *At Lincoln's Side* (2000) p. 101 as quoted by Burlingame 1999 and by his unedited *Abraham Lincoln: A Life* vol. 2 ch. 35 (Knox College text, p. 3854).

## Timeline
| Date (1864) | Evidence | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 7 Nov. | Hay writes Nicolay (who was away in Illinois for the election) from Washington. | 1908 *Letters* 1:238 |
| 8 Nov. (election day) | Hay's diary: with Lincoln in the War Department telegraph office through the evening. | 1908 *Letters* 1:239-243; Thayer 1:216 |
| 9-10 Nov. | Hay writes out the President's 8 Nov. serenade response "after the fact" ("I wrote the speech and sent it to Hanscum"); the 10 Nov. response "the President himself wrote late in the evening." Same week Hay drafts, in his own hand, Lincoln's 9 Nov. letter declining Charles Butler's Goldwin Smith dinner (CW 8:97 n.: "The draft is in John Hay's autograph"). | 1908 *Letters* 1:245; Bullard p. 133; CW 8:97, 101 n. |
| 11 Nov. | Diary: Cabinet meeting, the sealed 23 Aug. memorandum opened; the serenade entry quoted above. | 1908 *Letters* 1:243-245; Thayer 1:216-217 |
| 12 Nov. (Sat.), 2 p.m. | "I started for G[rant]'s headquarters. We left the Navy Yard at two o'clock in the afternoon" with Fox, Dahlgren and others. | 1908 *Letters* 1:245-246; Thayer 1:217 |
| 13 Nov. | Hampton Roads; up the James; City Point 3 p.m.; conference with Grant; Grant on board "until nearly one o'clock at night - Monday morning." | 1908 *Letters* 1:246-250 |
| 15 Nov. (Tue.), 7 a.m. | "We left Fort Monroe at 3 1/2, and arrived at Washington Tuesday morning, the 15th, at 7 a.m." | 1908 *Letters* 1:250 |
| 17-30 Nov. | Nicolay ill in St. Louis (Lincoln Log 17 Nov.; 21 Nov.: "[John Nicolay not seriously ill, expects to be out in few days. Washington Star, 21 November 1864.]"; returns 30 Nov.). Under the arrangement Hay described to Herndon, "in Nicolay's absence [I] did his work also." | Lincoln Log; Hay to Herndon 5 Sept. 1866 (Bullard p. 66) |
| 21 Nov. (Mon.) | Bixby letter dated. Same day Lincoln's letter to John Phillips, whose only surviving copy "is on Executive Mansion stationery in an unidentified handwriting" (CW 8:118 n.). No Hay document dated 21 Nov. is recorded. | CW 8:116-118 |
| 23 Nov. | "To Edwin M. Stanton, Hay for Lincoln, referring letter of James Speed ... introducing Mrs. Lucy M. Forde" (CW 8:568-569, appendix). Grant and staff in Washington for long interviews with Lincoln, Stanton and Halleck (Lincoln Log). | CW 8:568-569; Lincoln Log 23 Nov. |
| 25 Nov. (Fri.) | Hay to Charles S. Spencer, New York: "I regret that the President was literally crowded out of the opportunity of writing you a note for yr. banquet. He fully intended to do so himself, and for that reason, I did not prepare a letter for him. But the crush here just now is beyond endurance." Also "To George B. Smith, Hay for Lincoln, acknowledging present of piece of beef, DLC-RTL" (CW 8:569; Lincoln Log). Cabinet hears Lincoln read the draft annual message (Welles, Lincoln Log). | *At Lincoln's Side* p. 101 via Burlingame 1999 and Knox ch. 35 p. 3854; CW 8:569; Lincoln Log |
| 27 Nov. | "To Edwin M. Stanton, Hay for Lincoln, referring letter of L. B. Wynne to John Hay, Nov. 23, 1864" (CW 8:569). | CW 8:569 |
| 28 Nov. | Lincoln to Henry F. Harrington and others: "LS, InFtwL. The body of the letter is in John Hay's handwriting" (CW 8:122). | CW 8:122 |
| 1 Dec. | Telegram to Andrew Johnson "in John Hay's autograph, 'A. Lincoln' appearing to have been signed by Hay also," with Hay's note "Send above John Hay AAG" (CW 8:125). | CW 8:125 |
| 8 Dec. | Telegram to Rosecrans "in John Hay's handwriting except for Lincoln's signature," with Hay's note to Major Eckert (CW 8:158). | CW 8:158 |
| 18 Dec. | Next printed diary extract. | 1908 *Letters* 1:250 |

## Was Hay in Washington on 21 November 1864?
Yes, so far as the record shows. He returned from City Point at 7 a.m. on Tuesday 15 Nov. and was writing for Lincoln in Washington on 23, 25, 27 and 28 Nov. and 1 Dec.; no absence between 15 Nov. and 18 Dec. is recorded in the 1908 diary extracts, Thayer, or Basler. Thayer 1:218: "During the ensuing months we have only sparse records of Hay's life."

## What Hay was writing that week
The Spencer letter is the key document: on 25 Nov. Hay says Lincoln "fully intended" to write a New York banquet note himself and that Hay therefore "did not prepare a letter for him," but that Lincoln was "crowded out" by "the crush." Burlingame (unedited *Life* vol. 2 p. 3854) reads this as showing that Lincoln, "unusually preoccupied," also lacked time for the Bixby letter, so that "For the president's signature Hay wrote a letter of condolence." The letter equally shows (a) that Hay distinguished between letters Lincoln wrote himself and letters Hay "prepared" for him, and (b) that Hay could tell a correspondent that a letter had not been prepared at all; it says nothing about Bixby. Bullard (pp. 134-135) characterizes the Hay of 1864 as "the untried young man of 1864" whose known compositions for Lincoln (Boker, Rowland) show "no glimmer of Lincoln."

## Hay's habits of record
Hay pasted a clipping of the Bixby letter into two scrapbooks (Brown University, donated 1954 per Burlingame 1999 or "late 1950s" per Burlingame 1995 p. 70; Library of Congress vol. 54, donated 1952, which also holds clippings of Lincoln's letters to Phillips (21 Nov. 1864), Wyman (11 Dec. 1861), Loomis (12 May 1864) and the New York Committee (2 Dec. 1863)) (Burlingame 1995 pp. 70-71; Emerson 2008 pp. 94-96 and nn. 40-43 describe the LC scrapbooks OV 7 and OV 40 as full of Lincoln material including photostats of the Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural). He kept no diary entry, letter or memorandum of the Bixby letter, and Robert Lincoln reported that Hay "had never seen any draft or copy of this letter" (Towers to Tweedale, 22 Apr. 1908, Emerson 2008 n. 68).