John Tyler, the 10th President of the United States, named his plantation Sherwood Forest, after the other place of the same name made famous by Robin Hood lore. Today his Sherwood Forest is a museum to the man and his Presidency and is also known as John Tyler House. It is located on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, ( Read more... )

The man now known as Ulysses S. Grant was actually born with the name Hiram Ulysses Grant. His father was a staunch Ohio abolitionist. As a young man Grant showed an exceptional aptitude for working with horses, a life-long passion and one of the first things he writes about in his famous autobiography. When Grant was 17 years old, Congressman ( Read more... )

On April 27, 1822 (201 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... )

A number of Presidents and "Almost Presidents" have held the office of Governor of New York, and so it is that today's subject in this series is another former New York Governor, the 18th man to hold that office, Horatio Seymour.


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George Brinton McClellan is a difficult man to understand or like. Historians paint him as a narcissist who was a thorn in the side of his President (Abraham Lincoln). One famous historical anecdote recounts the time when the President went to the home of McClellan, who was then his commanding general, and McClellan snubbed Lincoln and refused to ( Read more... )

Winfield Scott gained fame as an American military commander who served as a general in the United States Army from 1814 to 1861. His nickname was "Old Fuss and Feathers" because he insisted on proper military etiquette. He was also called "the Grand Old Man of the Army" because of his many years of service. He commanded in the War of 1812, the ( Read more... )

On July 23, 1885 (137 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... )

John Tyler, the 10th President of the United States, named his plantation Sherwood Forest, after the other place of the same name made famous by Robin Hood lore. Today his Sherwood Forest is a museum to the man and his Presidency and is also known as John Tyler House. It is located on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, ( Read more... )

Abraham Lincoln assumed the presidency in March of 1861, and with it he also assumed a problem left unaddressed by his predecessor. That problem was Fort Sumpter. On December 20, 1860, shortly after Lincoln's election victory, South Carolina had adopted an ordinance declaring its secession from the United States. By February 1861, six more Southern ( Read more... )

It seems incredible to think that the United States faced its greatest threat to national unity because a large segment of the population felt justified in enslaving other human beings and justifying their actions on the color of the enslaved people's skin. It will forever be a shameful blight on the history of a nation which styles itself as the ( Read more... )