Revered As 'A Backwoods Jupiter'

36th of 45 excerpts from Lincoln by David Herbert Donald:

For more mature companionship Lincoln did not look to his oldest son, Robert, who was off studying at Harvard College most the year. . . .In his two secretaries, Lincoln found the sons that Robert could never be. Working side by side for long hours with John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Lincoln came to known these young men extremely well and to enjoy their company. Because they lived right in the White House, he got in the habit of dropping in on them at night to chat and review the day's news. Once at midnight he came in, laughing, to read them an amusing poem by Thomas Hood, "seemingly utterly unconscious," Hay noted in his diary, "that he with his short shirt hanging above his long legs and setting out behind like the tail feathers of an enormous ostrich was infinitely funnier than anything in the book he was laughing at."

He valued their absolute loyalty. They, in turn, watched him grow into the presidency, and admired the skill with which he operated the levers of power. They revered him as "a backwoods Jupiter" who wielded "the bolts of war and the machinery of government with a hand equally steady and equally firm." His secretaries were among the first to recognize Lincoln's mastery of the English language. As a graduate of Brown University, Hay felt he had to deplore "some hideously bad rhetoric -- some indecorums that are infamous" in Lincoln's public papers, yet he recognized these documents would take their "solid place in history, as a great utterance of a great man." Bonding to the President, they resented anyone else who tried to get close to him. A fierce rivalry developed between the two secretaries and Mrs. Lincoln. Ostensibly their clashes had to do with the management and refurbishing of the White House, but at base they stemmed from jealousy over the President's affections.