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John George Nicolay (born February 26, 1832, as Johann Georg in Essingen/Pfalz, Rhineland-Palatinate – September 26, 1901) was an American (German-born) biographer and secretary of Abraham Lincoln. In 1838, he immigrated to the United States with his father, attended school in Cincinnati, and later went to Illinois, where he edited the Pike County Free Press at Pittsfield. Then he became assistant to the secretary of state of Illinois and while in this position met Abraham Lincoln.

In 1861, Lincoln appointed Nicolay to be his private secretary, which was the first official act of his new administration. Nicolay served in this capacity until Lincoln's death in 1865. Shortly before the president's assassination, Lincoln appointed Nicolay to a diplomatic post in France. After the death of the President, Nicolay became United States Consul at Paris, France (1865-69). He was marshal of the United States Supreme Court (1872-87). In 1881, Nicolay wrote The Outbreak of the Rebellion.

Nicolay and John Hay, who had worked alongside Nicolay as assistant secretary to Lincoln, collaborated on the official biography of the 16th President. It appeared in The Century Magazine serially from 1886 to 1890 and was then issued (1890-94) in book form as ten volumes, together with the two-volume Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln. The resulting biography is a definitive resource on Lincoln and his times. Nicolay and Hay also edited Lincoln's Works in twelve volumes (1905). Finally, Personal Traits of Abraham Lincoln was published by Helen Nicolay in 1912.

In the 1992 documentary Lincoln, the German-born Nicolay is voiced by the Austrian-born actor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "John George Nicolay", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0