Pike County Ballads and other poems in this volume by Colonel John Hay
represent in the best manner the spirit of our strong and independent
sister-land across the Atlantic. Pike County Ballads do full justice to
the raw material in the United States, and show a loyal temper in the
rough. The other pieces show how the love of freedom speaks through
finer spirits of the land, and, dealing with realities, can turn a life
of action into music.
Colonel Hay has lived always in vigorous relation with the full life of
the people whose best mind his poems represent. He is descended from a
Scottish soldier, a John Hay, who, at the beginning of the last century,
left his country to take service under the Elector-Palatine, and whose
son went afterwards with his family to settle among the Kentucky
pioneers. Dr. Charles Hay was the father of John Hay the poet, who was
born on the 8th of October 1838, in the heart of the United States, at
Salem in Indiana. When twenty years old he graduated at the
neighbouring Brown University, where his fellow-students valued his skill
as a writer. Then he studied for the Bar, and he was called to the Bar
three years later, at Springfield, Illinois.
At Springfield, Abraham Lincoln practised as a barrister. Shrewd,
lively, earnest, honest, he grudged help to a rogue. In a criminal case,
when evidence threw unexpected light upon a client's character, Abraham
Lincoln said suddenly to his junior, "Swett, the man is guilty; you
defend him, I can't." In another case, when a piece of rascality in his
client came out, Abraham Lincoln left his junior in possession of the
case and went to his hotel. To the judge, who sent for him, he replied
that he had found his hands were very dirty, and had gone away to get
them clean. Almost immediately after John Hay's call to the Bar at
Springfield he was chosen by Abraham Lincoln, newly made President, to go
with him to Washington. At Washington, Hay acted as Assistant-Secretary,
and was also, in the Civil War, aide-de-camp to President Lincoln.
Throughout that momentous struggle he was actively employed on the side
of the North at the headquarters and on the field of battle. He served
for a time under Generals Hunter and Gillmore, became a Colonel in the
army of the North, and served also as Assistant Adjutant-General. John
Hay had in that struggle three brothers and two brothers-in-law serving
also in the field.
In 1890 there was published, in ten volumes, at New York, by the New York
Century Company, "Abraham Lincoln, a History: by John G. Nicolay and
John Hay." This was, with fresh material inserted, a collection of
chapters that had been published in The Century Magazine from November
1886 to the beginning of 1890. The friends, who worked equally together
upon this large record, said, "We knew Mr. Lincoln intimately before his
election to the Presidency. We came from Illinois to Washington with
him, and remained at his side and in his service--separately or
together--until the day of his death."
Abroad, as at home, Colonel Hay has been active in the service of his
country. In 1865 he went to Paris as Secretary of Legation, and after
remaining two years in that office he went as Charge-d'Affaires for the
United States to Vienna. After a year at Vienna, Colonel Hay went to
Madrid as Secretary of Legation under General Daniel Sickles. In 1870 he
returned to the United States, and was for the next five years an
editorial writer for the New York Tribune. During seven months, when
Whitelaw Reid was in Europe, Colonel Hay was editor in chief.
It was for The Tribune that Hay wrote "The Pike County Ballads," which
were first reprinted separately in 1871, and are placed first in the
collection of his poems. In the same year he published his "Castilian
Days," inspired by residence in Spain.
In 1876 Colonel Hay removed from New York to Cleveland, Ohio. He then
ceased to take part in the editing of The Tribune, but continued friendly
service as a writer. From 1879 to 1881 Colonel Hay served under
President Hayes as Assistant-Secretary of State in the Government of the
United States. In 1881 he was President of the International Sanitary
Congress at Washington. Since that time he has been active, with John G.
Nicolay, in the preparation and production of the full Memoir of Abraham
Lincoln, now completed, that will take high rank among the records of a
war which, in its issues, touched the future of the world, perhaps, more
nearly than any war since Waterloo, not even excepting the great struggle
which ended at Sedan.
That is the life of a man, here is its music.