n the months leading up to the 1864 election, Abraham Lincoln thought he would be a one term president. The war was taking longer than everyone had expected, and the mounting casualties made the Democratic Party message of a negotiated peace sound more appealing. The Republican Party was split between the Radical Republicans and the moderates. Some
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In the time leading up to the 1864 election, Abraham Lincoln thought he would be a one term president. The war was taking longer than everyone had expected, and the mounting casualties made the Democratic Party message of a negotiated peace sound more appealing. The Republican Party was split between the Radical Republicans and the moderates. Some
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Alternate Presidents is a collection of 28 short stories edited by Mike Resnick, speculating on what history might have been like if the outcome of 28 presidential elections would have been different. This anthology was released on February 15, 1992. This book is a delight to read. Resnick, a Hugo Award winning science fiction writer, also
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On July 31, 1875 (149 years ago today) Andrew Johnson, the 17th President of the United States, died at his home in Elizabethton, Tennessee at the age of 66. He died as the result of a stroke.
On July 24, 1862 (162 years ago today), Martin Van Buren, the 8th President of the United States and the first President from New York, died in the same community where he was born, Kinderhook, New York, at the age of 79.
On July 23, 1885 (139 years ago today) Ulysses Grant, the 18th President of the United States, died at Mount McGregor, New York, at the age of 63. His love of cigars had caught up with him and throat cancer had claimed another victim.
Andrew Johnson left office as President despised by many. His successor Ulysses Grant refused to ride in the same carriage as Johnson on the way to the inauguration, and although Johnson had survived an impeachment attempt, he was leaving office as a lame duck President. It didn't make him any more popular with the majority Republicans in Congress
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James Buchanan attended Abraham Lincoln's inauguration, and he left his successor a mess. As Buchanan rode in a carriage with Abraham Lincoln to Lincoln's inauguration, Buchanan is said to have remarked, “My dear sir, if you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel on returning to Wheatland, you are a happy man indeed.”
It's almost a certainty that Franklin Pierce was an alcoholic. He died from cirrhosis of the liver, and he is quoted as saying "after being President, there's nothing left to do but get drunk." Whether this quote is authentic or apocryphal, the sentiment expressed in it appears to match Pierce's post-presidential life.
Millard Fillmore was the second Vice-President to become President upon the death of the incumbent. He would turn out to be the last President from the Whig Party and despite his desire to hold on to the job and run for re-election, his party had ideas. The Compromise of 1850 that Fillmore had supported made him unpopular in the north, especially
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