Hay, John M.

Born: 1838-10-08 Salem, Indiana

Died: 1905-07-01 Sunapee, New Hampshire

Hay's family moved to Warsaw, Illinois, when he was young. In 1852, he enrolled in Illinois State University but transferred to Brown University and graduated in 1858 with a Master of Arts. He studied law in Springfield, Illinois, and earned admittance to the bar in 1860. He was an appellant attorney with Abraham Lincoln in a case before the Illinois Supreme Court. A Republican, Hay campaigned for Lincoln in 1860. President Lincoln appointed him as his personal secretary along with John G. Nicolay, and Hay moved to Washington, DC. In 1864, Lincoln commissioned Hay as a major and assistant adjutant general, and Hay was promoted to colonel the following year.

Kenton J. Clymer, "Hay, John Milton," American National Biography, ed. by John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 10:367-71; William Roscoe Thayer, The Life and Letters of John Hay (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1915), 1:5; Brundage v. Camp, Martha L. Benner and Cullom Davis et al., eds., The Law Practice of Abraham Lincoln: Complete Documentary Edition, 2d edition (Springfield: Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 2009), http://www.lawpracticeofabrahamlincoln.org/Details.aspx?case=138394.