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.


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James Buchanan's biographer Jean Baker writes that James Buchanan became president with probably more knowledge about the presidency than anyone before him. As a long time Washington insider, he had seen a number of presidents come and go. According to Baker, Buchanan planned on being a strong president, relying mainly on his own counsel. In ( Read more... )

On April 27, 1822 (202 years ago today) Hiram Ulysses Grant, the 18th President of the United States, was born in Point Pleasant, Ohio. When Congressman Thomas Hamer nominated Grant for admission to West Point Military Academy, he mistakenly listed Grant's name as "Ulysses S. Grant" and the name stuck for the rest of Grant's life. Even Grant ( Read more... )

On February 12, 1809 (215 years ago today) Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin on the Sinking Spring Farm in Hardin County, Kentucky (now LaRue County). He is ranked by many as the greatest President and almost everyone places him in the top three. His brilliant leadership through the Civil War and the tragedy of his assassination, as ( Read more... )

On December 28, 1856 (167 years ago today) Thomas Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States, was born in Staunton, Virginia. Although he was known as "Tommy" as a child, he would go by his middle name Woodrow for most of his life.


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On March 4, 1865, when Abraham Lincoln was set to deliver his second inaugural address, it looked as if there were better days ahead. It was a foregone conclusion that the Civil War would soon be at an end and that the Confederacy would be soundly defeated. The Confederate Army was running low on able-bodied soldiers and on the supplies of war, and ( Read more... )

During the Civil War it must have seemed as if Rutherford B. Hayes had a bulls-eye on him. The courageous but unlucky Ohio soldier was on the receiving end of five Confederate bullets during the war. His horses didn't fare much better. He had two of them shot out from under him. While not initially a supporter of the war, Hayes quickly came around ( Read more... )

War had made them enemies. But when the Civil War had ended, Ulysses Grant was not one to hold a grudge against many of those who had commanded the armies that Grant had battled against. In descriptions of Grant as a victor, magnanimous is an adjective often used to describe his treatment of his defeated foes. Some of his former enemies became post ( Read more... )

On July 23, 1885 (138 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 ( Read more... )

Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born in Virginia, the third of four children of Joseph Ruggles Wilson and Jessie Janet Woodrow. His parents moved south in 1851 and although his father was a clergyman who defended slavery, owned slaves and who served as a chaplain to the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Woodrow Wilson would say that he could ( Read more... )