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The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
John Hay (1838–1905)
Hay, John. An American poet and prose-writer; born in Salem, IN, Oct. 8, 1838; died on July 1, 1905. He graduated from Brown University, and settled in Illinois as a lawyer, but went to Washington in 1861 as one of Lincoln’s private secretaries, acting also as his aide-de-camp. He served under Gens. Hunter and Gillmore with the rank of major and assistant adjutant-general. He was subsequently in the United States diplomatic service, stationed at Paris, Vienna, Madrid, and London. In 1905 he was made Secretary of State. His literary reputation rests upon ‘Pike County Ballads,’ the best known of which are perhaps ‘Little Breeches’ and ‘Jim Bludso’; ‘Castilian Days,’ a volume of travel; and ‘Life of Abraham Lincoln’ (with J. G. Nicolay). (See Critical and Biographical Introduction).