James Armistead Lafayette: Revolutionary Spy

Posted on December 5, 2024 by Feather Foster

James… never in his youth used the surname Armistead.

Trying to Trace the Untraceable Information

It is a nearly impossible job to accurately delve into long-long-ago history when scant records were kept. It is all the harder when the information sought pertains to slave history from more than 250 years ago. Historians do their best…

Starting with Lafayette…

…It is much easier. The Marquis de Lafayette (1757-1834) was an incredibly wealthy and highly placed Frenchman. Espousing the cause of American independence when he was still in his teens, he outfitted his own ship and mini-army, came to a fledgling United States, and contributed mightily to is cause of liberty. He is beloved in the USA – even today. 

The young Marquis deLafayette

It is because of him that we know anything about James “Armistead”… the Black slave who signed on as a double-agent in the American Revolution. 

The Slave James

James (who never used a surname in his early years) is extremely hard to trace. His birthdates are listed as either 1748 or 1760. Twelve years is a big gap! Either 10 years older, or three years younger than Lafayette! He was said to have died in either 1830 or 1832, at aged 70 or 84. Another big gap. 

He was born a slave in New Kent County, Virginia. Or maybe in North Carolina. Nevertheless, he became the property of Col. John Armistead of New Kent, and sometime later became the body servant of his son William – again, either six years younger or six years older! 

While scant information is available about his younger years, it appears that James was favored and well treated – which included the rare benefit of learning to read and write. 

The Trail Begins…

William Armistead (1754-93) had always been a strong proponent of independence, and by 1781, some seven years into a long sloggy war, British strategy had changed. Instead of focusing on New England and the industrial mid-Atlantic states like New York, New Jersey and the “capital” city of Philadelphia, the redcoats opted to come up the southern coast, hoping to separate the colonies from each other.

Almost as obscure a figure as James, William Armistead was currently serving as a commissioner to provide military supplies in Richmond, and had brought his manservant. 

Said to be Lafayette and James

It was easy for a Black slave familiar with the terrain to pass through enemy lines. Most of them who served found work as teamsters or laborers. But a Black slave like James, who could read and write, and who displayed both poise and uncommon intelligence, was a perfect candidate to function as a spy. Even as a double-agent. 

The Lafayette-Cornwallis Connection.

General Lafayette, now a veteran commander at perhaps twenty-three, was tasked by George Washington to create diversions in Virginia, where the British General Lord Charles Cornwallis was wreaking his own havoc. William Armistead suggested to Lafayette that his servant James could be useful. Lafayette, who always abhorred slavery, agreed, and took a liking to the man and saw his potential – as a double-agent!

James found a position waiting tables in the headquarters of General Cornwallis, now entrenched in Yorktown. Naturally the commanding officer and his staff discussed many military strategies around the dinner table, oblivious to those who served them.

James recognized the importance of many of those discussions and reported information back to Lafayette. He also carried important secret messages from the Marquis to American agents behind British lines. It was dangerous. If he had been caught, he would have been hanged at once. 

Concurrently, having won the confidence of General Cornwallis, he was tasked with “aiding” General Benedict Arnold, the notorious traitor who betrayed General George Washington and the Revolutionary cause. James provided him with plausible misinformation.

Perhaps the most valuable information James passed along to the Marquis, was Cornwallis’ decision to remain in Yorktown. He had no plans to withdraw or evacuate. Lafayette thought enough of James and his value to the war effort to mention him in his reports to General Washington.

When the American siege of Yorktown resulted in the complete surrender of Cornwallis’ troops, Lord Cornwallis (with his own poise and humor) recognized his “ex-waiter” among the Americans, and admitted that James had “put one over on him.” No hard feelings.

Freedom Gained, Freedom Denied

In 1782, Virginia passed a manumission act freeing any slave who had fought in the war. Naturally it contained loopholes. It provided freedom only to slaves who had been armed, and served as enlisted soldiers, usually sent as substitutes for their masters. James was spy, however and carried no weapons, and was denied his freedom. He persisted continually, with the support of William Armistead – and the testimony of Lafayette himself,who wrote the following statement for him:

James Armistead Lafayette (c.1759-1830)
Engraving, c.1824, (VA History.org.)

“This is to Certify that the Bearer By the Name of James Has done Essential Services to Me While I Had the Honour to Command in this State. His Intelligence from the Ennemy’s Camp were Industriously Collected and Most faithfully deliver’d. He perfectly Acquitted Himself With Some Important Commissions I Gave Him and Appears to me Entitled to Every Reward his Situation Can Admit of.”

Finally, in early. 1787, James was granted his freedom, and it was then that he took the surname “Lafayette’ or “Fayette.” 

Later…

By 1816, James Lafayette was the proud owner of forty acres in New Kent County, with a family – and even slaves of his own. He also had been granted an annual pension for his service.

A decade later, when the elderly Marquis de Lafayette made a highly publicized two-year visit to the USA, he was in Richmond, and recognized James in the crowd. He stopped his carriage, and immediately rushed to embrace his former comrade. 

Sources:

https://virginiahistory.org/learn/james-fayette-revolutionary-spy

https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/lafayette-james-ca-1748-1830/

http://www.mountvernon.org/

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/biographies/james-armistead-lafayette

Posted in Nifty History People | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Lincoln Men: Father and Son

Posted on November 19, 2024 by Feather Foster

Lincoln’s upbringing was indeed the “annals of the poor.”

But How Poor?

They were definitely not rich, but two generations prior to Abraham Lincoln’s arrival, the Lincoln’s were comfortably fixed, and well regarded by their peers and neighbors. Originally from Virginia, Lincoln’s grandfather (also named Abraham) had moved to Kentucky in the 1780s, and owned substantial property. 

Grandfather Abraham was murdered in an Indian raid. Thomas Lincoln, the father of the Great Emancipator, was only eight, and an eye-witness to his father’s murder. His quick-witted 15-year-old brother Mordecai shot the Native before he could harm the youngster. 

Thomas Lincoln

But the family’s financial situation was complicated due to the law of entail and primogeniture, happily rescinded by later generations of Americans. What it meant was that family property was inherited entirely by the oldest son (i.e. primo-genitive, “first born.”) That meant all of it. That is the entail par. If a man wished to “gift” his other children, he usually found other means: an education, living-gifts of land, dowries to daughters, etc. The practice (eons old, by the way) was meant to keep the great-family money intact – rather than having it watered down by generations of large families.

Thus grandfather Abraham’s property: land, house, livestock and possessions all went to Mordecai, his eldest son. The two younger Lincoln brothers now had to work for their livings. Thomas, the youngest, had little formal schooling – but he had learned carpentry, considered a trade to provide a good living. And when he married, he could afford to buy a good sized tract of land. But land was one of the cheapest of all commodities.

Complications. Always Complications.

We can’t pick our relatives. Some we love, some we can’t stand. Most fall somewhere in the middle. There are those who say Tom Lincoln was illiterate – barely able to scrawl a signature. Others say nay: He had a decent signature. Some insist his carpentry skills were very good, with skilled flourishes. Others say his carpentry was purely basic.

Replica of Lincoln birthplace

Suffice it to say that his son Abraham had a rough upbringing and meager education. While he learned to fell trees and split rails, he was never a carpenter. And his education was all self-taught, with little thanks to his father’s encouragement. According to some lore, Tom Lincoln was a harsh parent, not given to affection. It was his step-mother, Sarah Bush Johnston, who married the widowed Tom Lincoln when AL was around nine, who encouraged young Abe to value learning of all kinds. She would later say that they “understood” each other.

Tom Lincoln forged a stronger bond with his stepson, John Johnston. They understood each other: hunting, fishing, good-ol’-boy pastimes. Bottom line, Abe and his father had little in common. Perhaps the only thing in common was the ability to tell a good story! Tom Lincoln was a popular local raconteur. Abe Lincoln’s way with a good and apropos yarn became legendary.

Abe Moves On…

When Abraham Lincoln reached his majority, he was no longer bound (whether by law or tradition or family tie) to live and work under his father’s roof and rule. He hired himself out on a riverboat down the Mississippi, gaining not only experience, but more knowledge of the world than he had known before. And knowledge of himself. 

Old Lincoln illustration (LOC)

A year later, when he settled in New Salem, IL, a comfortable distance from his family, the seeds of his riverboat experiences took root. He made friends. He took on responsibilities. He read everything he could get his hands on. When the opportunity to “read law” was presented, he leapt at the chance. It was no doubt difficult – but he did it. And found himself elected to the State Legislature, and associated with a higher level of peers than he had known before. 

It was a long struggle for financial security, and perhaps even longer for social acceptance in “polite society.” But he did it.

Father and Grandfather

When Lincoln moved to Springfield, the new capital of Illinois, he was nearly thirty, with a decade of living on his own. His law practice was a slog financially, although his reputation as an attorney was always commendable. Nevertheless, despite outstanding debts from his days in New Salem, he managed to keep an eye on his aging parents – and even purchased some land, so they would always have a home. His step-family lived nearby, which may have eased AL’s mind. But their personal contact was remote, and likely deliberate.

Lincoln married “up,” as the saying goes, at age 33. Mary Todd, a Kentucky belle, educated and socially experienced, was well connected to the governing powers in the new Illinois capital. Lincoln likely believed she was far out of his league, as did most of “societal” Springfield, but Miss T. obviously sensed qualities to admire in her lanky companion.

Composite photos of the Lincolns

They married and had four children. Lincoln, riding the circuit of central Illinois courthouses during the first decade of his marriage, had a couple of rare occasions to visit his parents. Perhaps it was a courtesy call. Perhaps to check up on their welfare. He cared – but it was a mild care, rather than devotion. He never brought his wife or children to meet their Lincoln grandparents. Nor did he ever invite Tom and Sarah Lincoln to visit them in Springfield. 

When Tom Lincoln was on his deathbed, his son did not visit. Their previous contacts had been strained, and AL did not expect any improvement.

Tad and Lincoln (LOC)

Nevertheless, unlike his own father, Abraham Lincoln was an affectionate and lenient parent. He made time to enjoy his children when he could. 

And he named his youngest son Thomas (Tad), in memory of his deceased father.

Sources:

Sources:

Donald, David – Lincoln – Simon & Schuster, 1995

Nicolay, John G. – A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln – The Century Co., 1902

Pryor, Elizabeth Brown – Six Encounters with Lincoln – Penguin Books, 2017

https://www.nps.gov/people/thomas-lincoln.htm

https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/newsalem.htm

Posted in A POTUS-FLOTUS Blog, Abraham Lincoln, Nifty History People | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Theodore Roosevelt: The Boat Heist

Posted on November 13, 2024 by Feather Foster

Theodore Roosevelt’s time in the Dakota Badlands was some of the most pivotal experiences in his life.

Why The Badlands?

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was a New York patrician born with many advantages: wealth, a loving family, huge intellect, even huger curiosity, almost limitless opportunities, but unfortunately, poor health. As an asthmatic child, those limitless opportunities were curtailed for several years, and redirected his interest in natural science – a more sedentary pastime. Fortunately, a combination of puberty and physical exercise helped abate much of his condition. In his mid-teens and more robust, he spent a summer in Maine, under the tutelage of bona fide lumbermen, who were amazed by the greenhorn kid, grew to respect his character and aptitude, and became his lifelong friends.

College-age TR

TR senior died when Theodore had just finished his freshman year in college. He was slated for a large inheritance at his majority. He decided to hunting in the Wild West of North Dakota, where reputations had to be earned. He was happy to earn it, and loved it.

When his young wife died in childbirth, TR was only twenty-five. His grief was devastating, all the more because his beloved mother died of typhoid the same day – in the same house. Needing to heal his wounds in private, he went back to the Dakotas. By that time, everyone within a large radius knew – or at least knew about “the four-eyed greenhorn from New York.” But they liked him and respected him. And he loved it. 

TR’s first wife Alice Lee.

The Bad Winter of 1886

Winter wreaked havoc in the prairies of the north in 1886, but by early spring, TR decided to return to the cattle ranches he had previously purchased, and enjoy a little hunting with Bill Sewall and Wilmer Dow, his companions from Maine who he had engaged to help run one of the ranches. The winter weather had been especially brutal, and the spring rains made it even worse. Creeks and rivers that usually contained the runoffs were now flooded – and treacherous. 

TR (center) with Dow (l) and Sewell (r)

On top of that, a cougar had been threatening his cattle, and TR decided that the hunt was on – for the mountain lion first, and then for enough game to keep them fed for a while. He told Bill and Wilmer to provision their small scow, and they would stalk their dangerous prey who likely hugged the shores of the nearby river. Problem was …the boat was missing. It had been stolen.

This was strange. The scow was practically worthless. Ten or twenty dollars at most. Who would steal it? Turns out, there was only one other known ranch-with-a-boat for miles around, and that one was rotted and falling apart. They suspected the boat-thieves to be from that ranch however, led by a nasty fellow named Finnegan, with a reputation for regular mayhem. Arguing with his ranch hand pals, Theodore Roosevelt insisted that theft is theft, period. If they had stolen horses, or rustled cattle, they would have been summarily hung! But to condone the theft would only invite more theft. It was TR’s character, pure and simple.

One of TR’s Dakota cabins.

The three men built another boat and in a couple of days the chase was on! 

Sewall and Dow maneuvered the boat with long poles, and occasionally hunted some game to keep themselves adequately provisioned. Sure enough, a few days later, they saw their old scow tied up along the still-swollen river bank. It was easy for them to take the miscreants by surprise. Especially since the bad guys were surrounded by Roosevelt, Sewall and Dow – with guns.

Justice Prevails

TR borrowed a horse to haul provisions, and he and his companions took the “perpetrators” on foot to the nearest town, to be turned over to the proper authorities. It took four days! It was still freezing cold in March, especially at night. Snow and ice was still on the ground. The upright and humane Roosevelt had no wish to tie them up, thus inviting frostbite or worse. He simply made them remove their boots. No sane person would try to run away in sub-freezing temperatures – barefoot. And where cactus was prevalent. 

And the three “good guys” shared their meager rations with the three “bad guys.” When Sewell and Dow foraged successfully for a couple of guinea fowl, everyone ate. At night, the three bootless “bad guys” shared a buffalo blanket.

Frontier justice was quick and unforgiving in the 1880s. Trials were immediate, legal assistance was rare, and sentences (usually harsh) were proclaimed, administered and effected pronto! 

Theodore would have none of that. He had visions of Dakota’s soon-to-be statehood filled with families and farms and towns. Law-abiding citizens who would build schools and churches and town halls. Justice, to him, must be just. It was his character.

When they reached Dickinson, the nearest town-with-a-sheriff, he turned his prisoners over to the law, where they were sentenced to two years in prison. It is said that when their imprisonment had been completed, Finnegan actually wanted to meet Roosevelt. He had treated him fairly.

TR’s second wife, Edith Carow.

Theodore Roosevelt’s reputation was now nearly legendary in the Badlands, and according to lore, there were some who wanted to elect him as North Dakota’s first congressman once they received statehood. But by then, TR was planning his remarriage, and Edith Carow, his bride-to-be, was not inclined to be a frontier wife. And Roosevelt himself knew his future lay in the East. In New York.

Nevertheless, when he formed the volunteer cavalry unit for the War with Spain, cowboys were the first to enlist in the Rough Riders. And TR always believed he would never have become president if he had not gone out west.

Sources:

Dalton,, Kathlen – Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life – 2004, Vintage

Roosevelt, Theodore – Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail – Dover Publications (reprint) 2009.

https://www.nps.gov/thri/theodorerooseveltbio.htm

https://www.nps.gov/people/alice-hathaway-lee-roosevelt.htm

Posted in A POTUS-FLOTUS Blog, Theodore Roosevelt | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Margaret Taylor: Army Wife

Posted on November 4, 2024 by Feather Foster

“She was just as much a soldier as I was.” – Zachary Taylor

Margaret Mackall Smith

…long forgotten by history, Margaret Smith was a Mackall on her mother’s side. They were a prominent Maryland family, whose distaff members were said to be the belles of Baltimore.

Margaret Smith (1788-1852) alas, was the youngest of a large brood. Her father, Walter Smith, had substantial property, and little Peggy was well on her way to a happy childhood, and hopefully a happy life. She learned her 3-Rs and the necessary housekeeping tasks like all well-bred young girls her age. Then her mother died when she was ten.

The next few years were mostly in care of her Mackall grandparents, including some time at a New York finishing school. But her father died when she was in her mid-teens, and she went to live with a married sister in Louisville, Kentucky.

It is fuzzy how and when she met Zachary Taylor, an enlisted soldier. It was definitely in Kentucky, however. His family, originally from Virginia, had moved to Kentucky when Zachary was still in his teens. Opting against a formal classical education, he decided to become a soldier. West Point had barely opened its doors, and learning by experience was still the best route to a military career. 

Said to be young Mrs. Taylor

The facts of their courtship suggest they had been acquainted for a year before they married. And while there were periodic separations (common to all military spouses) she went with him as an army wife in its true sense: wherever he was sent.

Army Wife Circa 1810:

It was not easy. According to the 1810 census, there were only 17 states. But the new territory of Louisiana (huge), and territories in Indiana, Michigan and Illinois were quickly attracted settlers seeking a better life, and statehood down the road. Settlers required at least a modicum of protection, whether from hostile natives or themselves. 

Younger Zach – in civvies

Zachary Taylor was a young officer (proven viable and capable from the start) who was dispatched to various outposts to maintain law and order. According to lore – and what was commonplace among the regular army at that time, the newlyweds lived in tents, lean-tos, shacks, fortresses, an occasional hotel or private dwelling and periodically out in the open if necessary. 

They traveled on horseback, or occasionally in army wagon trains. Food was cooked out in the open, and consisted primarily on what their foragers could provide in the way of game. It was a hard life. There were few (if any) luxuries or ties to the more “genteel” life that the former Margaret Smith had enjoyed in her younger days. 

The Family Taylor

Zachary and Peggy Taylor had six children: Ann, Sarah Knox (always called Knoxie in the family), Octavia, Margaret, Mary Elizabeth (Betty), and finally a son, Richard. Both Octavia and little Margaret died in early childhood from what was called bilious fever – a malarial-type of disease, usually highly contagious. 

General Zach
Sarah Knox Taylor Davis

Margaret was devastated by the loss of her two small daughters, and became seriously ill herself. It took years to fully recover, and her health would always be compromised. Malarial types of diseases are known to recur from time to time.

Raising small children in military outposts in the 1820s was daunting – and both Taylors wanted the best for their offspring. When the children were small, it was Peggy who taught them their essentials: reading, writing, doing sums, basic sewing and handiwork. Then, when they were around eight, they were brought east, to stay with family, and attend regular schools. Sometimes they came back home (wherever that was) for summer vacation; sometimes they didn’t see their parents for more than a year. 

Peggy, however, maintained her rule as the senior officer’s wife on the military base. Occasionally she was the only female on the base. She tended the sick when needed. She kept chickens and planted a large garden to provide fresh vegetables. She is also said to have churned butter and cheese in the basement – and also kept a fairly impressive wine cellar – for visiting guests. 

Most of All, However…

The Taylors did not want their four surviving children to follow in military footsteps. Living in harsh frontier conditions was hard – particularly on one’s health. 

Betty Taylor Bliss

Despite their fine intentions, each of their three daughters married Army officers. Their middle daughter, Sarah Knox, had the distinction of falling in love with – and later eloping with a young West Point Lieutenant – against her father’s will. After their elopement, Sarah and her bridegroom, young Jefferson Davis, traveled to New Orleans to meet his family. She contracted malaria and died after only a few months of marriage. 

Both Ann and Betty married Army officers as well. Their son Richard, who was sent to Yale and then to Oxford for a superb education, became a General in his former brother-in-law’s Confederacy. It was under General Richard Taylor that the Confederacy fought its last battle. 

So much for parental influence.

Gen. Richard Taylor

The Final Blow

When General Zachary Taylor came to national prominence during the War with Mexico, it was only a matter of time before he was touted for the Presidency. The Taylors had recently purchased a plantation of their own in Baton Rouge, and planned to spend their retirement quietly. When the former General was coerced into candidacy, Peggy Taylor uttered her only known quotation: “It will shorten both our lives.”

During her residence in the White House, she kept mostly to herself, causing gossip that she was coarse (shades of Rachel Jackson) and unfit for public life. She entrusted her youngest daughter, Betty Bliss to serve as hostess.

But she was right. Their lives were shortened. Zachary Taylor died a year and a half after his election. She died two years later.

Sources:

Boller, Paul F. Jr. – Presidential Wives: An Anecdotal History – 1988 Oxford University Press

Caroli, Betty Boyd – First Ladies: An Intimate Look at How 38 Women Handled what may be the most Demanding, Unpaid, Unelected Job in America – Oxford University Press, 1995

https://millercenter.org/president/taylor/essays/taylor-1849-firstlady

http://archive.firstladies.org/biographies/firstladies.aspx?biography=13

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Zachary-Taylor

Posted in A POTUS-FLOTUS Blog, Nifty History People, Zachary Taylor | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Dusting Off Franklin Pierce

Posted on October 26, 2024 by Feather Foster

Franklin Pierce, 14th POTUS, is virtually unknown and disregarded…

The Basic Pierce Facts

Franklin Pierce (1804-69), Democrat from New Hampshire, was a dark horse nominee, elected President in 1852. It took 49 Ballots to put him on the ballot, which was an exhausting exercise for the convention attendees. Few people knew who he was. He had been off the political radar for eight years.

He was a good-looking fellow, with an outgoing genial personality. As a graduate of Bowdoin College in Maine, Pierce read law and gravitated to politics. He was a natural, since he made friends and acquaintances easily, happily bending an elbow with them at the local taverns. When he met pretty-but-frail Jane Appleton (1806-63), whose minister-father had been President of Bowdoin, he pursued mildly – but her family were unsupportive. Particularly the “bent elbow” part. Nevertheless, with Jane approaching spinsterhood (age 28), they married. By that time FP had been elected to Congress.

Franklin Pierce, 14th President.

Jane was one of those wives who had extraordinary influence with her husband – but not all influence is good influence, despite her pious morals. Her distaste for politics was a wedge that separated her husband from the career he enjoyed, and the friends he treasured. Her antipathy toward alcohol afforded him little relief from the heavy moral pall of their homelife. When all three of their children died before they were twelve, Jane sank into a depression and never really recovered.

Jane Appleton Pierce

The Pierce Presidency was notable only for his somber social gatherings and his sympathetic attitudes toward the South. While he was always personally against slavery, he waffled on its Constitutionality. 

And he did drink. After Jane Pierce died, he was said to be continually drunk.

And in this, our historically-challenged century, is likely all most people know about good ol’ Franklin Pierce.

A Personal Note…

In 2002 or 3, we made a trip to New England, particularly to visit some Presidential sites we had never seen. Concord NH was on the list. 

When we visited a house in Concord connected with the Pierces and discovered a modest dwelling whose docents were thrilled to see us. Not many visitors came there – let alone someone with a real, serious interest.

The Pierce home in Concord

On a side table, there was a group of photographs, which, we were told, had been taken by a young schoolboy. He had discovered the unkempt and overgrown gravesite of the 14th President, and decided to make it his project for a scouting badge. He spent several hours weeding and tending, replanting and tidying up the grave. He donated the before-and-after photos to the Pierce site. It was heart warming, and I never forgot it! Then there was the little book….

The Pierce grave.

About the Same Time…

The eighth grade class at the Kenneth A. Brett school in tiny Tamworth, NH, took a class field trip to Salem, MA, home of the legendary House of Seven Gables. Their teacher had recalled that author Nathaniel Hawthorne, pal of Emerson and Thoreau, and a bona fide giant of 19th century American literature, had a strong connection to New Hampshire’s only President – Franklin Pierce. They had been classmates at Bowdoin, and remained close personal friends for the rest of their lives.

In fact, when generally forgotten ex-Congressman and Senator Franklin Pierce became the Democratic presidential nominee in 1852, Hawthorne (by that time well-known and highly regarded) was asked to write Pierce’s campaign biography. It was originally published by Ticknor, Reed and Fields, with an edition of less than 13,000 copies, mostly in paper wrappers. They are considered the rarest of all Hawthorne publications. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne

When social studies teacher Brian Wiggin tried to find a copy of the rare biography, there was none to be had in their library, and the state library offered to make a photocopy of the only copy they had.

Inspired by Wiggin, the class decided to reprint their own edition of Hawthorne’s least-known book, using Boxtops for Education, a project sponsored by more than 80 brand name products from Cheerios to Lysol spray. It was a major undertaking by 32 eighth graders – who not only learned more about Franklin Pierce and Nathaniel Hawthorne, but about the publishing process itself. This also included researching for various little known images of the 14th President, his family members and cabinet, and related items of interest. By the time the slim (100 pages) volume was re-published, the eighth grade students knew more about Franklin Pierce than about any other president.

His “notable” accomplishments were generally superficial… memorizing his inaugural address (no notes); keeping his cabinet intact for the full four years; displaying the first Christmas Tree (in the private family quarters). He was President when Commodore Perry opened trade with Japan. He was also President when the Kansas-Nebraska Act began wreaking havoc in the Midwest.

Perhaps more than anything, Franklin Pierce was a sad man, whose historical reputation is less than stellar. He suffered loss and tragedy in his personal life, and lived to see the country split by slavery – which included a sorrowful parting from another close friend, Jefferson Davis, who had been his Secretary of War.

Epilogue:

The eighth graders who resuscitated the Nathaniel Hawthorne campaign biography of Franklin Pierce are all grown men and women now, approaching middle age, and possibly with eighth graders of their own. They had a uniquely edifying opportunity and experience in working with the material, learning as they went….about writing, about understanding archaic language, about long-ago history, about substantive essays, about researching illustrations, about indexing – and about the publication industry as a whole.

Kudos to all! There are so many lessons here to be learned. Especially the joy of hands-on history!

Sources:

Hawthorne, Nathaniel – The Life of Franklin Pierce (reprint) – Peter E. Randall, Publisher, 2000

Wallner, Peter A. (2004). Franklin Pierce: New Hampshire’s Favorite Son. Plaidswede.

https://millercenter.org/president/pierce

Posted in A POTUS-FLOTUS Blog, Franklin Pierce, Nifty History People | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

John and Abigail Adams: Mourning Alone

Posted on October 14, 2024 by Feather Foster
When Abigail Adams was thirty-two, she gave birth to a daughter.

Late Fall, 1776

John Adams, following a momentous time in Philadelphia, promoting, drafting and approving the Declaration of Independence, requested and was granted some leave of Congress to attend to his family and business in Massachusetts.

John had been away from his wife and family on-and-off since 1774, attending a Continental Congress as one of the representatives from Massachusetts. Philadelphia to Braintree was a two-week trip; absences were long, and particularly stressful. Not only was there emotional hardship in their separation, but Massachusetts, particularly the Boston area, suffered danger, sickness, turmoil, economic devastation, anxiety and death via a war that was becoming widespread throughout the thirteen colonies.

The young mother

Abigail Adams already had prepared survival kits for her children, managed the family farm and household, tended generously to evacuees from Boston in need of aid, nursed family members and servants through a cholera epidemic – followed by dysentery, followed by smallpox. Followed by death. Followed by an ordeal of inoculating herself and her children against smallpox. She was exhausted.

John’s few months in Massachusetts was welcome beyond belief. By January ‘77, when he returned to Philadelphia, both of them knew she was pregnant. It was her sixth pregnancy. Their daughter Abigail (nicknamed Nabby from birth) was ten; John Quincy was nine; a daughter Susanna died in infancy; they there was Charles, six, and Thomas, four.

Now, when she wrote to her husband, their words were couched in private understanding. “I am sure no seperation [sic]was ever so painfull [sic] to me as the last. Many circumstances concur to make it so—the distance and the difficulty of communication, the Hazards which if not real, my immagination [sic] represents so, all conspire [to] make me anxious, as well as what I need not [. . .] mention.”

The young-ish father

And John responded frequently, and just as circuitously, noting his “source of Anxiety which I never had before,” and urging her to “tell me you are as well as can be expected.”

They did not want their letters to fall into the wrong hands.

June or July, 1777

Pregnancy and childbirth were serious medical conditions, fraught with danger and changes and emotional turmoil. Late in her pregnancy, Abigail had a sudden chill and shaking episode which caused her to fear the worst: that something had happened to the unborn babe. Her doctor was hesitant to confirm anything and possibly could not assure her one way or the other. She was encouraged to have hope.

But Abigail was correct in her fears. When she finally went into labor, it was exhausting, arduous and long. And John, who had been nearby during the births of all his other children, was hundreds of miles away.

JQ had a sad birthday.

On July 11, 1777, John Quincy’s tenth birthday, Abigail gave birth to a stillborn daughter. She named the baby Elizabeth, after her mother, who had died a year earlier. It was nearly a week  before she could sit up and write the sad news to her husband. “Join with me my dearest Friend in Gratitude to Heaven, that a life I know you value, has been spaired [sic] and carried thro Distress and danger altho the dear Infant is numberd [sic] with its ancestors.”

Any loss of a child leaves a hole in the mother’s heart. Even in an age where infant/child mortality were extremely high. And of course, with pregnancy and childbirth creating its own hormonal emotional difficulties, Abigail was devastated. She and John had looked forward to welcoming another baby. While her sisters and her children were near to bring some help and comfort to the bereaved mother, John was another story.

John Adams, Grieving Father

Transportation, including mail delivery, was very slow in 1777. John did not learn the sad news of their stillborn daughter for nearly two weeks after it happened.

He was also alone. He had no family or close friends to provide the comfort that fathers also need. Life was hard in those days, and death in childbirth and infant mortality was high – nearly 30%. Most parents of that era knew the pain of tiny coffins first hand. It was obviously God’s will, expected and borne.

But John Adams also grieved, feeling sentimental pangs for an infant he had never seen. He wrote her immediately, saying “Never in my whole life, was my Heart affected with such Emotions and Sensations.”

But he took whatever comfort he could, grateful to God for preserving to him “a Life that is dearer to me than all other Blessings in this World.”  

Epilogue

Losing a child in infancy, or even in early childhood naturally causes scars, but more often than not, those scars pale with time.

Charles Adams, RIP

But nearly twenty-five years later, John and Abigail suffered a far grievous loss when their grown son Charles succumbed at 30. He was perhaps the most loveable of the Adams children, but also the most vulnerable. He fell into bad habits and eventually disappointed his father with no opportunity for reconciliation. But as Abigail said, “He was no man’s enemy but his own.”

Nabby Adams Smith, RIP

Abigail was devastated beyond understanding, but perhaps more so, her flinty husband was not only grieved, but deeply conflicted about the loss – and about his mishandling of the situation. Unfinished and unresolved issues present grief that no one else can assuage.

Fifteen years after Charles’ death, their only daughter developed breast cancer, and suffered through a mastectomy, followed by two years of its withering metastasis. There was nothing anyone could do.

This time John and Abigail grieved together.

Sources:  

Butterfield et al – The Adams Papers, Vol. 2, – Harvard University Press 1961

Gelles, Edith – Abigail and John: Portrait of a Marriage – William Morrow 2009 p. 37-39

Levin, Phyllis Lee – Abigail Adams – St. Martin’s Press, 1987

https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-02-02-0107

https://www.founderoftheday.com/founder-of-the-day/charles-adams

Posted in A POTUS-FLOTUS Blog, John Adams, Nifty History People | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt 1901

Posted on September 30, 2024 by Feather Foster

Vice President Theodore Roosevelt had a quiet, somber inaugural.

The Sad Circumstances

Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was taking a rare family vacation at a resort in New York’s Adirondack Mountains when news came that President William McKinley had been shot by an assassin at the Pan-American exposition in Buffalo on September 7, 1901. Naturally he hurried to Buffalo where he was told that the President was recovering nicely, and Roosevelt was urged to return to his family. But President McKinley was 58, portly and of a sedentary nature. The attending doctors, failing to utilize a newfangled x-ray machine readily available at the exposition, also failed to locate the bullet that had lodged in his belly. Within a few days, an infection had spread rapidly. “Recovering nicely” was quickly becoming “urgent.”

McKinley assassinated!

Once again Roosevelt raced to Buffalo, and advised that the President had died only hours before. The Cabinet had already assembled, along with a small group of Senators and Congressmen. It was essential for the new President to take the oath of office immediately.

The Queen is Dead, Long Live the King

Theodore Roosevelt’s near-decade in the White House coincided with the reign of Britain’s King Edward VII. His mother, the British queen for 63 years, died in January, 1901, making the 58-year-old Prince of Wales the new King. But while he became King immediately, it would be more than a year until his formal coronation and parade.

Old Queen Victoria was past eighty, and had been failing for some time. Plans had been in the works for nearly a year to prepare a magnificent coronation ceremony for her successor. England was a the height of its empire, the most powerful – and civilized – country in the world. They wanted to show off their prestige, especially following the pomp and ceremonies of the late queen’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees. 

Long lists of notable invitees were prepared. After all, the new King was closely related to most of the royal families in Europe. Other countries were duly expected to send high-ranking representatives as well. All came with entourages. And egos. All required housing and feeding and appropriate entertaining. Protocol mavens labored over their precedence and status.

King Edward VII

The plans were so complex that the actual coronation ceremony was postponed until September, 1902.

The Buffalo Inauguration

Today, even in Buffalo, few people know that a president was inaugurated in their city. And not just any president. Theodore Roosevelt was the new president, destined to be one of the most famous world leaders of his time, and perhaps of any time. His was not the sedate personality of Buffalo’s Millard Fillmore, another VP turned POTUS a half-century earlier. Nor was it like the gruff business-minded Grover Cleveland, who grew up in Buffalo and had been its mayor thirty years earlier. 

Grover Cleveland
Millard Fillmore

No, Theodore Roosevelt was the perfect head-of-state for America’s new century.

It had been suggested that the brief ceremony take place in the home of John Milburn, president of the Pan-American Exposition, but that was quickly overruled. It would be unseemly. President and Mrs. McKinley were Milburn’s guests, and following the assassination, he was taken to his home, and lingered and died in his guest room. His body was still being prepared for the funeral services. Frail Mrs. McKinley was in seclusion there.

Ansley Wilcox, a local judge and old friend of TR, met the now-President at the train station. Only three months earlier, he had hosted Vice President TR when he came to open the Pan-American Exposition. Now he brought President TR back to his stately Victorian home, where he could freshen up, change to appropriate “borrowed” clothes, and greet his new cabinet. It was also decided that the Wilcox parlor would be an appropriate place for the private inauguration.

A sketch of TR’s 1902 inaugural

Taking the oath of office was a somber ceremony, with only cabinet members and a handful of other notables. Limited newspaper coverage was permitted, but photographers were expressly forbidden. Later sketches of the scene were from memory. The new POTUS offered brief remarks. There was absolutely no hoopla, and everything was over in a half hour. 

Later…

After paying his respects to Mrs. Ida McKinley, TR took immediate control.

The Milburn home in Buffalo.

Following the funeral ceremonies the following day, TR left for Washington, to stay with his sister Anna Roosevelt Cowles, whose townhouse had been his occasional pied a terre for more than a decade. This way, the McKinley family could make their needed arrangements in private.

Later-Later… A Lost Gem of a Story!

Newspaper coverage of Roosevelt’s inaugural was quickly surpassed by the coverage of  McKinley’s death and funeral, his temporary burial in Canton, Ohio, and the trial and execution of his assassin. In due time, all of that was eclipsed by the whirlwind of TR-ness. 

But, a year later, after the grand spectacle of the coronation of King Edward VII hopped the pond and splattered in US headlines, comparisons were made to TR’s inauguration. An old article from a Buffalo newspaper was found – containing a doozy of a typographical error!!

The typesetter had inadvertently substituted the letter “b” for the “o” in oath, and the article read… “For sheer democratic dignity, nothing could exceed…surrounded by the cabinet and a few distinguished citizens, Mr. Roosevelt took his simple bath, as President of the United States.” Then it was lost.

The oath-bath story appeared in Vanity Fair Magazine, and later was reprinted in a collection of VF clippings circa 1960. And lost again. 

But as Ansley Wilcox said in an essay he wrote shortly after the inauguration in 1901: “It takes less in the way of ceremony to make a President in this country, than it does to make a King in England or any other monarchy, but the significance of the event is no less great.”

Sources:

Corry, John A. – A Rough Ride to Albany – John Corry Publishing, 2000

Shenkman, Richard and Reiner, Kurt – One-Night Stands with American History – Quill/William Morrow, 1982

https://www.britannica.com/summary/Edward-VII

https://millercenter.org/president/roosevelt/life-before-the-presidency

https://www.trsite.org/learn/the-day-of-the-inauguration

Posted in A POTUS-FLOTUS Blog, Nifty History People, Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Grant, Greeley and the Strange Election of 1872

Posted on September 23, 2024 by Feather Foster
After Lincoln’s assassination, Ulysses S. Grant was arguably the most famous man in the country.

The Unlikely General

Ulysses S. Grant was an unlikely general. West Point educated (class of ’43), he was a middling student, and other than his fine horsemanship, there was little that stood out.

True, he served admirably in the War with Mexico, but he was a junior officer, and despite brevet promotions, was only a Captain.

Then followed a disastrous time in California-Oregon, where homesickness, depression and boredom led him to the whiskey barrel – and an ignominious departure from the Army. That was followed by a near decade of floundering. He had no real vocation, little useful skills, and no direction whatsoever. His only ambition was to provide for his wife and four small children.

But in 1861, when the Civil War began in earnest, the forgotten ex-Captain Grant re-enlisted in the Union Army, sorely in need of good, trained and experienced officers. Promotions and substantive assignments came quickly. Shiloh. Vicksburg. Chattanooga. Qualities previously unnoticed – even by Grant himself, came to the fore. Quiet leadership, intricate strategies, and breaking many tried and true military absolutes. And, unlike many of his fellow generals, Grant kept ego and “personalities” out of it whenever he could.

1869: The New President

After Lincoln’s assassination, the country clamored for Grant, who tried hard to avoid political involvement. But offers he couldn’t refuse were pouring in, and by 1868, he couldn’t say no. He was nominated, and won by a landslide against former NY Governor Horatio Seymour, who did not really want the office, and is now a name lost to history.

NY Gov. Horatio Seymour

But successful generals – and even fine leaders – does not insure the political skills of a civilian government for nearly 40 million souls, across an entire continent. Despite his overwhelming popularity, he still had detractors. There were those convinced he was the Butcher of the Battlefield – causing humongous casualties. There were those who wanted the “old” union again, to include slavery, or a watered-down version of it. And each area had its own problems, concerns, needs… and that did not include the “former” seceded with strong currents of resentment.

General Grant always had a personal leadership style, rather than a military council. He seldom called staff meetings, and was used to charting the course. While he was invariably open to comments and suggestions from his lieutenants, and occasionally took their advice, he was still a leadership-loner.

President Grant

He never claimed to be a politician and proved it from the start. Without including political leadership advice, he named his cabinet… and backtracked rapidly. His choices were faulty, and his list of detractors grew. And while Grant personally was never corrupt or dishonest, many of his appointees were found with hands in the public till. On his watch. Administration scandals were in every headline.

Of course there were “reformers,” wanting to clean up the political mess, and who favored the peaceful “isms” of the day. Socialism, temperance, communal societies, new and peculiar religious practices….

The Liberal Party began to organize.

Greeley? Really?

By 1865, Horace Greeley (1811-72) was nearly as well known as Grant. He had been “famous” much longer. Born in New Hampshire to a poor family, he showed brilliant scholastic abilities at a young age. Always a little “quirky” in personality, he left home for good at fifteen, found work in Vermont as a printer’s apprentice at a small newspaper, and read his way through the local library.

Young Greeley

Six years later, after the newspaper folded, he went to New York to seek his fortune. He held short-term positions with short-lived publications, started his own short-lived literary journal, became a Whig, joined a Universalist church, and married Mary Cheney all before he was twenty-five.

In 1838, Greeley met Thurlow Weed, an upstate NY newspaper editor and leader of the liberal faction of the growing Whig party. Weed hired Greeley as editor of its newspaper, first backing William Seward, and later, in 1840, William Henry Harrison – the party’s first winner. Greeley jumped into the political fray with gusto!

After the successful 1840 campaign, Greeley moved back to NYC and started his own newspaper: The NY Tribune. After a rocky start, he found success beyond his wildest dreams. Always quirky, he dressed in a duster-style overcoat and a top hat with a turned-up brim. He was a vegetarian. He espoused communal societies, free love, temperance, women’s suffrage, spiritualism and other social anomalies. On the positive side, he was a good writer, a fair thinker, and hired excellent contributors for his paper: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Karl Marx, and later, John Hay.

By the 1850s, he had made considerable money, a solid reputation in publishing, and was a founder of the Republican Party (replacing the ineffectual Whigs). By the Civil War, he was a force to be reckoned with – albeit still quirky.

Horace Greeley

He supported Lincoln – then he didn’t. Then he did again. He supported Grant – then he didn’t, and always considered him the Butcher of the Battlefield.

Political gadflies never really fit in. Nevertheless, he disassociated himself from the Republicans he helped found, and became the darling of the Liberals.

The Election Loss

The Liberal party was a fringe, i.e. spoilers. The Democrats were heavily the “solid south,” responsible for the Civil War. There were no superstars.

In 1872, the Democrats with no prayer of unseating the still popular (albeit vulnerable) Grant, opted to unite with the Liberal Party, seemingly their only hope. Horace Greeley, apostate Republican, was a name brand, sort-of. As expected, he lost the election.

But he lost a lot more than that. His healthy was failing. His wife’s health was failing – and she died. He lost most of the fortune he plowed into the failing campaign, which carried only a half dozen states. And he lost his mind, to a point that he needed to be hospitalized.

By the time the electoral college met to cast the official votes, the quirky Greeley had lost his life, too.

Sources:

Shenkman, Richard and Reiner, Kurt – One-Night Stands with American History – Quill/William Morrow, 1982

White, Ronald C. – American Ulysses, A Life of Ulysses S. Grant – Random House, 2016

https://millercenter.org/president/grant/life-before-the-presidency

https://www.history.com/news/ulysses-s-grant-president-accomplishments-scandals-15th-amendment

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Horace-Greeley

Posted in A POTUS-FLOTUS Blog, American Civil War, Nifty History People, Ulysses S. Grant | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Justice and the Presidents

Posted on September 2, 2024 by Feather Foster
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was young enough to be Lincoln’s son – and old enough to be FDR’s father.

OWH, JR

Oliver Wendell Holmes Junior (1841-1935) was Massachusetts born into a solid and prosperous family. His father, OWH Senior was a physician and occasional poet, probably best known for the versifying part. As such, his son was attending Harvard when the Civil War began in 1861. He was twenty – and immediately left school to enlist in the famous 20th Massachusetts. He believed it was his duty as an abolitionist and Unionist.

OWH during the Civil War

Due to his mature age, education and family influence, he was commissioned a second lieutenant, and continued to rise in the military. He was wounded three separate times. The first, at Ball’s Bluff, an early skirmish notable mostly for claiming the life of Col. Edward Baker, a long-time close friend of President Lincoln. He was wounded again at Antietam, and finally Chancellorsville. By then, he had become disenchanted with the war, the incompetence (both sides), and was even considering that the Confederacy should go its own way. Regardless of abolition.

His experiences in the War would color the rest of his life, his thinking, and even some of his important legal opinions.

Nevertheless, now a captain, OWH recovered from his Chancellorsville wounds and returned to active service, assigned in 1864 as an aide to General Horatio Wright, in command of Fort Stevens, one of several fortresses surrounding/guarding Washington DC. 

The Lincoln Encounter

By midsummer 1864, Union General Ulysses S. Grant was doggedly chasing Confederate General Robert E. Lee through Virginia, centering on the major railroad hub of Petersburg. Lee assigned General Jubal Early to provide some diversionary action around the Union capital. Early planned a raid on Washington, and had visions of capturing Lincoln himself.

Lincoln, always eager to support the troops in person if possible, had decided (unbeknownst to Early) to visit Ft. Stevens to demonstrate his faith in its military defenses to panicked Washingtonians. But unbeknownst to both General Wright and Lincoln, Confederate sharpshooters tasked with checking the fort’s defenses were within striking distance. Lincoln jumped up on one of the parapets for a better view. The 6’4” President, adding nearly another foot with his stovepipe hat, presented an unmistakable seven-foot target. 

An easy target

According to lore, it was Captain Holmes standing nearby, who shouted to the POTUS, “Get down you damn fool before you get shot!” Lincoln, unaccustomed to a smart-mouth retort, was said to smile and take the advice.

The smart-mouthed officer was never demoted, transferred or chastised for his “impertinence.” Lincoln likely had to admit the young fellow was right. 

The Making of a Justice

Oliver Wendell Holmes returned to Harvard after the war, received a legal degree, and went on to a stellar career in jurisprudence. He purchased a fine home in Massachusetts, traveled frequently, and was widely regarded for a philosophical and liberal interpretation of law. His thinking, his wit, his command of language guaranteed his presence as one of the country’s premiere legal minds. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

He practiced law in Boston for fifteen years, grew a trademark handlebar mustache, and served as an editor of the new American Law Review. He summarized his thinking in a series of lectures, collected and published as The Common Law in 1881, an important compendium of jurisprudence that has never been out of print.

In late 1882 he was appointed as an associate justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, and in 1899, became its Chief Justice.

In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. to the Supreme Court of the United States, a nomination that was quickly confirmed. He went on to serve in that capacity for more than thirty years – a record that still stands to this day. He was ninety.

The FDR Roosevelt Connection

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a distant cousin (and uncle by marriage) to Theodore Roosevelt. He may have had opportunities over the years to become moderately acquainted with the renowned (and witty) Justice, but it was never more than superficial.

When FDR was inaugurated President on March 4, 1933, the country was deep in the throes of a horrible economic depression which was affecting the entire world. Pockets of troublesome international strife were cropping up regularly. While the new President Roosevelt sported a famous name and a popular governorship of New York, he was generally untried and considered a lightweight.

March 4, 1933

He was also crippled by polio, confined to a wheelchair and occasional leg-braces, assiduously kept from the general public.

It had also been a tradition for a century, that a sitting POTUS was happy to receive calls, but did not pay calls (other than perhaps family members).

The Visit

March 8 was Holmes’ 92nd birthday.

Only three days after his inauguration, in the midst of a “bank holiday” to reorganize failing banking policies, Franklin D. Roosevelt paid an unprecedented personal “courtesy” visit to Justice Holmes to wish him a happy birthday.

According to author Jonathan Alter, the two men chatted pleasantly, which included the aged Justice recalling some of his Civil War experiences. He advised the new President that the only thing to do when losing a battle, was to stop retreating, blow the trumpet and give the order to charge.

Never out of print.

Then he thumbs-upped FDR’s iconic litany of new economic programs, by affirming “and that’s exactly what you are doing.”

After they said their goodbyes, Holmes gave his oft-repeated opinion of young Roosevelt: “He has a second class intellect, but a first class temperament.”

It was a pithy assessment. FDR’s intellect was superior to many, but he was hardly “brainy.” But the “first class temperament” was exactly what was needed to see the country through the trials and tribulations that would befall the entire world in the years ahead.

Sources:

Alter, Jonathan – The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope – Simon & Schuster, 2006

Ward, Geoffrey – A First Class Temperament: The Emergence of Franklin Delano Roosevelt – Harper & Row, 1989

https://jackmillercenter.org/article/the-fort-stevens-incident

https://supreme.justia.com/justices/oliver-wendell-holmes-jr/

Posted in A POTUS-FLOTUS Blog, Abraham Lincoln, American Civil War, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Nifty History People | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

James Buchanan: The Successful Failure

Posted on August 26, 2024 by Feather Foster
It would be a rare POTUS who could leave office without truly believing he had done a credible job.

The Stellar Resume

James Buchanan (1791-1867), a Pennsylvanian from mid-state, was the last President born in the 18th century. His family was large, but he was essentially a brother among a slew of sisters. 

Blessed with above average academic gifts, he attended Dickinson College, read law, and traveled the road to success: a solid legal practice, plus a variety of local and state political offices, ranging from district attorney, to local and state offices to congressman – all by the time he was thirty-five.

He had done well for himself financially. Invariably generous with his family, when his sisters were widowed with half-orphans, he undertook to be their guardians, at least monetarily. His niece Harriet Lane was nine when both her parents died, and “Nunc,” as she came to call him, took her as his special ward, educating her, providing her with all the niceties of a proper young-girlhood, and the sincere love and affection of a benevolent uncle.

Harriet Lane, second from left, with the Polks and her “Nunc.”

When Buchanan served in Congress, he made sure that Miss Harriet was placed in a convenient finishing school. He was grooming her to be his “escort” once she reached young womanhood. 

JB and Jax: Oil and Water

In the 1820s and 30s, just about all politics was Democratic – although some sub-sects were beginning to form. James Buchanan was a Democrat, and gravitated to rough-and-tumble Jacksonian politics. But JB was a suave, cosmopolitan fellow, conscious of his gentlemanly manner and appearance. Now-President Andrew Jackson also seemed cosmopolitan and mannerly, but he was a populist, born and raised rough-and-tumble, and it never left him. The manners part seemed contrived. He also did not have Buchanan’s advantage of a classical education.

POTUS Jackson

As a lifelong bachelor, and before his niece Harriet Lane had a permanent hold on his arm, Buchanan was a popular dinner guest – especially when there was an imbalance of men and women at the table. Since many high level dinner parties hosted a maiden aunt or widowed sister, a single man was a godsend for a table-escort. But as far as Jax was concerned, “Buck,” as he was sometimes called, was perceived as a “Miss Nancy.” Effeminate in his manners and bearing. His close friendship with bachelor Senator William King raised eyebrows.

Young James Buchanan

Nevertheless, President Jackson appointed him Minister to Russia.

Fifteen Years Later….

In 1844, James K. Polk, Tennessean and disciple of Andrew Jackson, was barely known outside a small Congressional circle for most of the Jackson Era, including a term as Speaker of the House. Then a series of election losses consigned him to retired-ish, and sniffing for opportunities. Political circumstances elected him as the country’s first “dark horse” President. It was a complete surprise that he was nominated, and even a bigger surprise when he won – against Whig powerhouse Henry Clay.

POTUS Polk

Polk appointed James Buchanan as his Secretary of State. This outraged the aged and ailing, but still politically vocal Andrew Jackson, demanding how the new POTUS could have selected “Buck” for the office – with such little experience in diplomacy. The stunned Polk reminded his mentor that he, himself, had appointed him Minister to Russia. Jax was honest in his explanation: the place where Buchanan could do the least damage, and was as far away from me (Jax) as I could put him!

Buchanan served competently enough at State.

A Decade Later…

Diplomatic lessons had been learned well. Harriet Lane was now old enough to be a social asset to “Nunc.” His ingrained manners and ways aligned perfectly with his new assignment from now-President Franklin Pierce: Minister to the Court of St. James. Queen Victoria. Great Britain. The most cosmopolitan place in the world. He was a great hit.

The Queen liked him. So did the Prince Consort. So did his British counterparts. His tenure as ambassador was an unqualified success, both socially and politically. They may have been his happiest years.

The Queen liked him!

He was a Democrat. A Pennsylvanian. Politically a unionist and against slavery. A man of reputation and resume. With few “enemies” so to speak. And many friends, including many southern friends. And being out of the country for four years, he was untainted by the roiling political waters that was turning into a spewing boiling miasma.

In 1856, he was the Democratic candidate for President – and won.

Elements of Failure

He was nearly seventy when he retired.

All the qualities that made James Buchanan successful in Great Britain conspired against him in Washington. His “social” White House was superb. Miss Harriet was a gracious hostess. Even Queen Victoria was pleased to allow her son, the eighteen-year-old Prince of Wales, to pay a visit to Washington, guest of the POTUS, a man old enough to be his grandfather.

Harriet Lane

But social acumen alone does not strong leadership make. The national “problems” – slavery at the top of the list, the spread of slavery as close runner-up, new territories in a position to “choose” for-or-against slavery was insidious, and a total defiance of law and order was becoming the way of the country.

Strong leadership was needed. A compassionate – and dispassionate nature. And the disposition toward flexibility, creative thinking and good humor. Most of Buck’s experience was legislative rather than executive. Most of his closest friendships were with Southerners. Untested in strong leadership, he floundered and wrung his hands through the tug-of-war that was becoming a real war, making the wrong decisions: sending soldiers when he should have sent diplomats; sending diplomats when he should have sent soldiers. And selecting the wrong ones anyway.

He was considered a failure when he left office, although he spent the remaining seven years of his life trying to explain his reasoning.

He undoubtedly meant well, but his reputation has never improved.

Sources:

Baker, Jean – James Buchanan – Times Books – 2004

Klein, Philip S. – President James Buchanan: A Biography – Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990

https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/james-buchanan/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-Buchanan-president-of-United-States

Posted in A POTUS-FLOTUS Blog, Andrew Jackson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, James K. Polk, Nifty History People | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment