11. James Knox Polk

Democrat, 1795-1849, President 1845-1849
Nickname: Young Hickory VP: George Dallas,
Wife: Sarah Childress
Though he instituted "Hail to the Chief" as the accompaniment to a presidential entrance and hosted the first Thanksgiving dinner at the White House, Polk gave some of its most boring parties. No music, alcohol, or dancing allowed; Polk himself was humorless and suspicious. His wife, Sarah, who was extremely religious, was his private secretary and his chief consultant. They had no children, worked hard and slept little. Polk virtually worked himself to death, dying at age 53, three months after leaving the White House---the shortest retirement of any president. Not trusting banks, he'd keep his money in bags around the house. He left everything to Sarah, with the provision that their slaves be freed at her death. She lived for 42 more years, never home again except to go to church.

Hail to the Chief
12. Zachary Taylor

Whig, 1784-1850, President 1849-1850
Nickname: Old Rough and Ready VP: Millard Fillmore,
Wife: Margaret Smith
He chewed tobacco.
He was the first president who had never held any previous political office.
He wore odd combinations of cilvian and military dress.
He was a terrible speller.
He had 6 children.
He died at age 65, after 16 months in office, he suffered a digestive upset from pickled cucumbers, cherries and an iced milk. He died five days later. Many people thought he was poisoned with Arsonic but historians discovered this was false in 1991.
He'd oppose slavery
The Exhumation of President Taylor

13. Millard Fillmore

Whig, 1800-1874, President 1850-1853
Nickname: The American Louis Phillipe, VP: None,
Wife: Abigail Powers, s: Caroline
He was the first President to have a stepmother.
He married his first wife who had been his school teacher. She was the first First Lady to have held a job outside of the home.
She established a library for first families in the White House.
He is remembered for the Compromise of 1850 which admitted California into the union .
Biography

14. Franklin Pierce

Democrat, 1804-1869 President 1853-1857
Nickname: Young Hickory of the Granite Hills,VP: William King,
First Lady: Jane Appleton
He was the most handsome President but was often depressed and suffered from alcoholism. All 3 of his sons died, one of them right before their eyes falling out of a railroad car.
He installed central heating and a second bathroom in the White House as well as the first Christmas Tree.
He supported the south in the Civil War and was disliked by his neighbors after he retired because of it. He died at age 64.

The Pierce Manse

15. James Buchanan

Democrat 1791-1868 President: 1857-1861
nickname: Old Buck, VP: John Breckenridge,
First Lady: None, First bachelor
Since he was a bachelor, his niece Harriet Lane was his hostess.
He was given many pets for company including a herd of elephants, a pair of bald eagles, and a newfoundland dog.
He cocked his head a lot due to being farsighted in one eye and nearsighted in the other. He would buy slaves in order to free them.
Wheatland, Buchanan's home

16. Abraham Lincoln

Republican, 1809-1865, President: 1861-1865
Nickname: Honest Abe, VP: Hannibal Hamlin, Andrew Johnson,
First Lady: Mary Todd
He was the tallest President(6"4)
He was moody at times, but loved to tell jokes and stories. He was not very organized and only had one year of formal education. He allowed his sons to have all the pets the wanted at the White House including two pet goats Nanko and nany, a cat named Bob and a turkey named Jack.
He recieved thousands of death threats and once stated
"I cannot bring myself to believe that any human being lives who would do me any harm"
He was shot by John Wilkes Booth in fords theatre while watching "Our American Cousin" and died 9 days later at age 56. The first President to ever be assinated.
Lincoln's Photos, Words and Timeline

17. Andrew Johnson

1808-1875, President: 1865-1869
Nickname: "The Grim Presence" VP: None,
First Lady: Eliza McCardle
He was the first president to hever attend school. He was a tailor by trade, and was taught to read by his wife who was teh First Lady to marry at age 16.
His daughter Martha was often the hostess at the White House as his wife had tuburculosis.
He ws the first to be impeached but not removed from office. Though later he went on to be a senator and died 5 months into his term at age 67 of a stroke.
Andrew Johnson National Historic Site

18. Ulysses Simson Grant

1822-1885, President 1869-1877
Nickname: Hero of Appomattox, VP : Schuyler Colfax, Henry Wilson,
First Lady: Julia Dent
He was a general and a graduate of West Point. He was at first rejected from the military for his reputation as a heavy drinker.
He was the first President to have a women run against him during a campaign. He loved to eat cucumbers soaked in vinegar for breakfast. He smoked up to 20 cigars a day.
He was tone deaf, and was a man of few words. He once stood up and said " I rise only to say I do not intend to say anything."
He once had to pay a 20 dollar fine for speeding with his horse through town.
He died of throat cancer and finished a book 3 days before he died at age 63 which left his wife financial stable from the profits.
Ulysses S Grant Network Home Page

19. Rutherford Birchard Hayes

1822-1893, President 1877-1881
Nickname: Dark-Horse President, VP: William Wheeler,
First Lady: Lucy Webb
Rutherford Birchard Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio, on Oct. 4, 1822. A graduate of Kenyon College and the Harvard Law School, he practiced law in Lower Sandusky (now Fremont) and then in Cincinnati. In 1852 he married Lucy Webb. A Whig, he joined the Republican party in 1855. During the Civil War he rose to major general. He served in the House of Representatives from 1865 to 1867 and then confirmed a reputation for honesty and efficiency in two terms as Governor of Ohio (1868–72). His election to a third term in 1875 made him the logical candidate for those Republicans who wished to stop James G. Blaine in 1876, and he was nominated.

The result of the election was in doubt for some time and hinged upon disputed returns from South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, and Oregon. Samuel J. Tilden, the Democrat, had the larger popular vote but was adjudged by the strictly partisan decisions of the Electoral Commission to have one fewer electoral vote, 185 to 184. The national acceptance of this result was due in part to the general understanding that Hayes would pursue a conciliatory policy toward the South. He withdrew the troops from the South, took a conservative position on financial and labor issues, and urged civil service reform.

Hayes served only one term by his own wish and spent the rest of his life in various humanitarian endeavors. He died in Fremont on Jan. 17, 1893
Rutherford B. Hayes
Inaugural Address

20. James Abram Garfield

1831-1881, President 1881-1881
Nickname: None VP: Chester Aurthur
First Lady: Lucretia Rudolph
Four months after taking office he was wounded fatally by an assassin's bullet. His administration is remembered for a struggle over patronage, exposure of the Star Route frauds, and the beginnings of a friendlier policy toward Latin America. Had Garfield never been president his distinguished service in the HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES would have earned him a place in American history. James Abram Garfield was born in a log cabin near Cleveland, Ohio, on Nov. 19, 1831, the youngest of five children of Abram and Eliza Ballou Garfield. Raised by his mother, who was widowed in 1833, James grew up in poverty. Though bright and anxious to learn, he turned 17 with but little schooling. In 1848 he struck out on his own and worked on a canal boat, but about six weeks later he returned home seriously ill. While convalescing he decided to get an education.

For the next decade religion and academic life occupied Garfield. He attended a seminary, taught in district schools, and from 1851 to 1854 studied and taught at the Western Reserve Eclectic Institute, now Hiram College. Through these years Garfield was an introspective person with narrow views and a small circle of friends. Deeply religious, he zealously embraced and preached the doctrines of the Disciples of Christ. From the Eclectic, a Disciple school, he entered Williams College. He graduated with honors in 1856.

Garfield returned to Hiram, became principal of the Eclectic in 1858, and instilled new life into the school. He preached, officiated at marriages and funerals, and lectured. During these years Garfield turned against slavery and became interested in politics. In 1859 he was elected as a Republican to the Ohio Senate, where he denounced slavery and secession, advocating force, if needed, to preserve the Union. He studied law and was admitted to the bar. In 1858 he married Lucretia Rudolph, a former classmate. In the Civil War Garfield rose from lieutenant colonel to major general. He provided superb military leadership, demonstrating a sound understanding of tactics, strategy, and the relationship between war and politics. From the outset he favored emancipation of the slaves and conquest of the South.

His initial battlefield assignment was at the head of a brigade that drove invading Confederates from eastern Kentucky. He led another brigade in the Shiloh and Corinth campaigns, after which he returned home on sick leave.

In 1863, Garfield became chief of staff to General William S. Rosecrans, commander of the Army of the Cumberland, and served through the Tullahoma and Chickamauga campaigns. After the Battle of Chickamauga, in which he performed heroically, Garfield resigned his commission to enter the U.S. House of Representatives, to which he had been elected in 1862.
Garfield served in the House from 1863 to 1880. He was broadly intelligent, national in outlook, and generally moderate in his views. He tempered idealism with practicality. He worked hard and spoke and wrote well. From 1871 to 1875 he was chairman of the committee on appropriations.

During Reconstruction, Garfield sided with the Radical Republicans in supporting black suffrage, congressional Reconstruction, and the impeachment of President Andrew JOHNSON. But events gradually convinced him that progress in the South would come only with education, business enterprise, and time.

An articulate defender of a conservative monetary policy, Garfield urged the resumption of specie payments and the payment of government debts in coin. Although he opposed the coinage of overvalued silver, he became interested in the possibility of a sound bimetallic standard.

Garfield was a moderate protectionist, looking to the time when American industry would be competitive without tariff supports. His record enabled his party to make protection for home industry a leading issue in 1880.

Garfield believed that in education lay the great hope of a democracy. He was the House leader in establishing the U.S. Department (later Bureau) of Education. He supported the education of deaf persons, served as a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and helped to create the U.S. Geological Survey.

On three occasions Garfield was widely criticized for actions that seemed to reflect on his integrity as a public man. These incidents, the most famous of which was the Crédit Mobilier scandal, should not obscure a notable congressional career. Today it appears that his weaknesses were largely of judgment rather than character.

Garfield helped elect Rutherford B. HAYES president, serving on the electoral commission formed to settle the disputed election of 1876. During the Hayes administration he was minority leader of the House. In January 1880 he was elected to the U.S. SENATE.

But Garfield never had a chance to take his Senate seat. In May 1880 he was a delegate to the REPUBLICAN National Convention. A well-known party leader for whom a presidential movement was already afoot, he attracted much favorable attention. Garfield placed John Sherman's name in nomination for president. After 34 ballots had failed to nominate Ulysses S. GRANT, James G. Blaine, or Sherman, the supporters of Blaine and Sherman united on Garfield, who won on the 36th ballot.

Garfield's humble origin, his political record, his conduct as a candidate, a vigorous Republican campaign, and the political inexperience of his rival brought a narrow victory. The new president was a large man, six feet tall and weighing 210 pounds. He had light brown hair and a beard flecked with gray. His months in the White House, though few, were busy and dramatic. Office seekers descended in droves. A struggle over New York political appointments developed between the President and Senator Roscoe Conkling, New York's Republican chieftain, and Garfield's victory in it enhanced his prestige and strengthened the presidential power. Exposure of the Star Route frauds, involving mail contracts in the West, created a sensation. Under Garfield's direction Secretary of State James G. Blaine began to lay foundations for improved relations with Latin America. Developments seemed to foreshadow a vigorous and able administration.

On July 2, 1881, Garfield was shot in a Washington railroad station. The assassin, Charles J. Guiteau, was a mentally unbalanced man who had unsuccessfully sought a federal appointment.

The President died at Elberon, N.J., on September 19. Seldom had Americans felt such public grief and indignation. The grief momentarily made Garfield appear greater than he was. The indignation hastened civil service reform, which Garfield himself had for some time advocated.
Alexander Bell and the Garfield Assination

1-10 21-30 31-40 41-43