After getting the army to overlook his drunken past, Grant was given command of troops again. He assumed a very unassuming manner, complete with rumpled civilian clothes and an aversion to martial pageantry. In outstanding victories such as Fort Donelson, Shiloh, and Vicksburg, Grant earned the nickname “Unconditional Surrender” and proved that Northern armies could win—even if the cost in lives was appalling. Lincoln latched onto him, made him the first lieutenant general since George Washington, and gave him whatever men and supplies he needed to cream Robert E. Lee in Virginia. Grant did just that, but at an ungodly cost. Though an American hero, he never could shake the association of his name with butchery.
His presidency has become something of a conundrum for historians, who can’t seem to decide whether it was a flawed success or an abject failure. The truth is probably in between: Though his administration was beset by a level of corruption unprecedented in American history, Grant’s commitment to empowering freed African Americans and making peace with the Plains Indians makes him stand out as a courageous national leader. His foreign policy was mostly a success (particularly in patching things up with Great Britain after the Civil War, which had strained the two nations’ relationship), and he masterfully thwarted an attempt by financial buccaneers to corner the gold market. The powers arrayed against him, however, were formidable; by the time he left office, the South had been returned to the grip of white supremacists. Overly trusting of those beneath him and unable to compensate fully for his lack of political experience, Grant presided over a government and a nation whose darker forces found room to prosper.
After deciding against running for a third term, Grant and his wife, Julia, embarked on a world tour, and they were received like royalty wherever they went. But financial woes would return to haunt the ex-president. Dying of throat cancer, he worried about providing for Julia after his death. The result was perhaps Grant’s greatest gift to posterity: his memoirs, which earned Julia a fat royalty check after her husband’s death and which remain to this day one of the finest accounts of the Civil War ever written.
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WHAT’S IN A NAME?
The eighteenth president of the United States was originally christened Hiram Ulysses Grant. He didn’t like Hiram, and so he didn’t mind when the congressman who recommended him to West Point couldn’t remember his full name. The military academy came to know him as Ulysses Simpson (after his mother’s maiden name) Grant, and it stuck.
U(NBELIEVABLY) S(OUSED) GRANT
Grant wrestled with the bottle virtually all of his life, and he usually won. But when he lost, he tended to lose spectacularly. He was a binge drinker whose slight, 5′8″ frame succumbed quickly to booze. His troubles began after the War with Mexico, when he was posted to the faraway Pacific Northwest. There, unable to pay for his family to join him, he longed to see his wife and young children, who were growing up without him while he wasted away in flea-ridden outposts that might as well have been on the moon. He took to the bottle and soon could be relied upon to show up for duty half in the bag. His superior officer eventually asked for his resignation, and Grant complied.
It’s interesting to note that while in the company of his family, despite years of destitution after leaving the army, Grant stayed on the wagon. Once he was back in the army, however, the urge overcame him again. During the monotony of the Vicksburg campaign, in which his forces were involved in a two-month siege of that famous city on the Mississippi, the usual triggers (boredom, separation from family, frustration) pushed him over the line. He began commandeering a riverboat for notorious all-night drinking binges. On one such excursion, Assistant Secretary of War Charles Dana saw the general get “as stupidly drunk as the immortal nature of man would allow.” Fortunately, Grant’s time in the White House was spent with his wife, who made sure his administration was mostly a sober one.
10,000 BOXES OF CIGARS
For all the talk about alcohol, it was Grant’s smoking that eventually killed him. He smoked a preposterous number of cigars each day (he was almost never seen without one) and always reeked of tobacco smoke. The public fed his habit—after his brilliant victory at Fort Donelson, a nation of well-wishers and admirers sent him more than ten thousand boxes of cigars. He no doubt smoked them all in short order. Grant would pay the piper years later by dying from throat cancer.
Thank Goodness for Civil Wars
In the years before the outbreak of the Civil War, Grant tried his hand at farming, rent collecting, working as a customshouse clerk, and cutting and selling firewood on the street. All of these ventures were failures. Finally, desperate for work, he turned to his father, who got him a job clerking in a harness shop being run by Grant’s younger brothers.
Years later, when Grant’s presidency ended, things were right back to business as usual. He borrowed enough money from William Vanderbilt to buy himself into a Wall Street brokerage firm. His partner was soon accused of illegal practices, the firm went belly-up, and Grant had to pay back Vanderbilt with old war trophies and gifts given to him by foreign dignitaries while he was president.
WELL DONE
It is one of the paradoxes of the Civil War that the general most often called a butcher was acutely sickened by the sight of blood. When Grant was a boy, his father ran a tannery, whose blood-soaked hides always sent young Ulysses running in terror. While serving in Mexico, he once attended a bullfight—only to depart early, sickened by the gore and sadism. The man who sent countless soldiers to their grisly deaths had a hard time stomaching army hospitals, where the amputated limbs piled up like cordwood. Grant even took his hatred of blood to the dinner table—he couldn’t tolerate meat that wasn’t charred.
RUNNING RINGS AROUND HIM
The Whiskey Ring. The Gold Ring. The Indian Ring. Schemes and scandals like these rocked the Grant administration. Though the president himself was above most of it, the corruption of those years stained his administration and ruined his good name for posterity. The bottom line is, he should’ve known better. But Grant had a penchant for appointing anyone and everyone who’d ever done a favor for him, and his trusting nature came back to haunt him—and the nation. Here are some of the uglier details:
When Erie Railroad “entrepreneurs” Jay Gould and Jim Fisk came very close to cornering the gold market (the notorious Gold Ring), they did so with the aid of Daniel Butterfield, assistant secretary of the treasury, and Abel Corbin, President Grant’s brother-in-law. Though Corbin was ignorant of the Gold Ring’s true intentions, he did manage to get Gould and Fisk plenty of face time with the president, whose frequent visits with the two scoundrels did much for their credibility in New York’s financial community. Grant headed Fisk and Gould off at the pass with the help of Secretary of the Treasury George Boutwell, but the effect of the ring’s bold venture was widespread economic chaos that would last for years.
The Whiskey Ring was an attempt by distillers to avoid taxes by paying off government officials. Among those accused of participating were Orville Babcock, Grant’s private secretary. Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Babcock was acquitted mainly because of his boss’s written deposition in his defense.
Secretary of the Interior Columbus Delano and Secretary of War William Belknap were both felled by participation in the Indian Ring, which involved kickbacks from profits slated to help Native Americans.
19 RUTHERFORD B. HAYES
October 4, 1822–January 17, 1893
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Libra
TERM OF PRESIDENCY: 1877–1881
PARTY: Republican
AGE UPON TAKING OFFICE: 54
VICE PRESIDENT: William A. Wheeler
RAN AGAINST: Samuel Tilden
HEIGHT: 5′8″
NICKNAMES: “Rutherfraud Hayes,” “His Fraudulency,” “Granny Hayes”
SOUND BITE: “I am heartily tired of this life of bondage, responsibility, and toil.”
If you think the election of 2000 was a
debacle, you should’ve been a voter in 1876. By the time Rutherford Hayes made it to the White House, he’d received more than his fair share of death threats, barely escaped a bullet that shattered a window in his home, and was secretly sworn in to avoid revolution. Secret Service agents kept their eye out for assassins at his inauguration, and even the outgoing president, Ulysses Grant, found it prudent to walk Hayes up to the podium on his arm. Why all the fuss? Because Hayes had lost to Democratic candidate Samuel Tilden by 250,000 votes.
Rutherford B. Hayes had been a talented lawyer, Union army officer, congressman, and Ohio governor. The Republicans made him their candidate for his lack of things—particularly his lack of a corrupt past and his lack of radical ideas that could alienate voters. He was up against a Democratic candidate who’d broken the corrupt Boss Tweed political machine in New York, and with the resurgence of the Democratic party throughout the country, everybody was expecting a close race.
They weren’t disappointed. Corruption marked the election process clear across the country, but it was especially messy in three states: South Carolina, Louisiana, and—would you believe?—Florida each submitted two conflicting sets of electoral votes. Though the popular vote went to Tilden, each pair of returns included one favoring each candidate, and the insanity was on. To sort everything out, Congress appointed a committee that ended up splitting along party lines—eight Republicans, seven Democrats. Hayes was president.
Acutely cognizant of his situation, the new chief executive bent over backward to assure the nation that he would serve only one term (imagine Bush or Gore making that promise!) and that he would avoid partisan choices. Such safe, inoffensive leadership became Hayes’s modus operandi. Compared to the corruption and excess of the Johnson and Grant years, the Hayes administration was like a tall glass of milk. A religious, teetotaling family man, Hayes ran his presidency like a prayer meeting, and reforms, especially of the civil service, were pushed through with thoroughness and zeal. His good intentions could go a little too far, though. He reached out to the Democrats at every opportunity to prove his love of harmony, especially in the South; military occupation was brought to an end, thereby ending Reconstruction and leaving African Americans to their fate. A believer in the power of knowledge to defuse conflict, Hayes was a great promoter of education—especially when it came to American Indians, whose children were hurried off to Christian schools where their native heritage could be systematically expunged.
The Hayes family banished alcohol from the White House and spent every night—yes, every night—singing gospel hymns.
Hey, it could’ve been worse. After all, what can you expect from a guy who wasn’t supposed to be president in the first place?
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Glory Hayes
In his twilight years, Hayes was always prouder of his Civil War record than of his presidency. And little wonder: He began the conflict as a major and was eventually promoted all the way to major general. Having participated in dozens of battles, he was wounded on numerous occasions and had his horse shot from under him no fewer than four times. Even General Grant was impressed and praised Hayes for “conspicuous gallantry.” Sure beats getting into the White House on a scam.
HOW DRY HE WAS
On August 19, 1877, the White House held a formal dinner in honor of Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, who was visiting the United States at the time. It was an appropriately sumptuous affair, and wine was served with every course. Given that American presidents entertain foreign dignitaries all the time, this hardly seems worth mentioning. What makes the evening worthy of note, however, is that it was the only White House function that featured alcohol of any sort during the entirety of the Hayes administration.
Several of Hayes’s predecessors had banned hard liquor from the White House. But never before had a president banned every kind of alcohol, including wine and beer. The first lady, Lucy, was behind the moratorium. Nicknamed “Lemonade Lucy” by a Washington society fond of tippling, she endeared herself to the burgeoning temperance movement by forbidding anything but water at state dinners. Most visitors, especially foreigners, were simply appalled.
THE CABINET THAT PRAYS TOGETHER STAYS TOGETHER
The Hayes presidency reached new heights of puritanism. The family could be found every morning on their knees at prayer, and every night—every night—was spent singing gospel hymns. The rest of the administration often got in on the action: Vice President William Wheeler was fond of showing up with a copy of The Presbyterian Hymn and Tune Book, while Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz played piano. Oh, the crazy times they had!
20 JAMES A. GARFIELD
November 19, 1831–September 19, 1881
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Scorpio
TERM OF PRESIDENCY: 1881
PARTY: Republican
AGE UPON TAKING OFFI CE: 49
VICE PRESIDENT: Chester A. Arthur
RAN AGAINST: Winfield Scott Hancock
HEIGHT: 6′
NICKNAMES: “The Preacher,” “The Teacher President,” “Martyr President”
SOUND BITE: “My God! What is there in this place that a man should ever want to get into it?”
By 1880, there were still plenty of Republicans who wanted Ulysses Grant to return to the White House. Calling themselves “Stalwarts,” they were opposed by the “Half-Breeds,” the majority of whom were backing Senator James Blaine from Maine. The resulting stalemate at the Republican convention produced a dark horse: James A. Garfield, who, like so many before him, hadn’t sought the presidency but acquiesced to his party’s calling.
Garfield spent eighty days on his deathbed while a team of experts (including Alexander Graham Bell) probed and prodded him with unsanitary medical instruments.
Garfield hailed from Ohio and was a close friend of Rutherford Hayes, with whose policies he generally agreed. (Garfield was a member of the controversial fifteen-man commission that elected Hayes in 1876.) Republicans saw Garfield as a compromiser who could breach the longstanding gap that had developed between the Capitol Building and the White House. Though implicated in some of the scandals that had rocked the Grant years, he was widely respected as a brilliant orator and man of letters, and most believed that his tainted past had more to do with naïveté than any lack of scruples. He was something of a prodigy: Elected to Congress at only thirty-two years of age, he’d already been a professor of ancient languages, the president of Hiram College, and a major general in the Union army. The guy had potential written all over him.
But few presidents can show the world what they’re made of in four months, which is about how long Garfield lasted. A lunatic named Charles Guiteau would see to that with a couple of .44-caliber bullets. Guiteau was a particularly nasty manifestation of an issue that would plague Garfield throughout his brief stint as president: patronage. Legions of office-seekers were constantly hounding the new president, and he once observed, “These people would take my very brain, flesh, and blood if they could.” Guiteau was among the most persistent—and when the president denied his petitions to become consul general of Paris, Guiteau flew into a murderous rage. The assassination shocked the country and jolted the government into overhauling the patronage system; the result was the Pendleton Act of 1883, which based appointments to the civil service strictly on talent and seniority.
After such a brief and uneventful administration, poor Garfield is mostly remembered—when he’s remembered at all—for being the first left-handed president and the last one born in a log cabin. What a waste.
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TOO MUCH MAN FOR ONE WOMAN
Garfield was considered a looker in his time, and his wife . . . well, wasn’t. Her name was Lucretia, but hubby James called her Crete for short. While an officer during the war, he had an affair with a woman known to history only as “Mrs. Calhoun.” Though little is known about her, we do know that Crete learned of the relationship. Her reaction was interesting: She
sent Garfield back for one last meeting with Mrs. Calhoun in New York City, where he was careful to reclaim every love letter he’d sent her and to destroy the evidence for posterity. The Garfields remained extremely close to each other the rest of their lives.
NUMBERS GAME
During the Grant administration, many in Congress had been implicated in a scam run by Crédit Mobilier, a corrupt organization that funded and oversaw the building of the Union Pacific Railroad. One of those implicated was James Garfield. The evidence revealed that he may have accepted a bribe in the amount of $329, acquired through stock dividends. Though the case against him was never conclusive, Garfield’s connection with the scandal came back to haunt him during the election of 1880. Thanks to his opponents, the number 329 was scrawled on everything from barns and street corners to the steps of Garfield’s own home.
When Lightning Strikes
As President Garfield once said, “Assassination can no more be guarded against than can death by lightning.” Perhaps not; but when you’re president of the United States, the likelihood of one becomes a hell of a lot greater than the other.
Charles Guiteau didn’t look like a nut when he came calling on the president for a position as consul general at Paris. He was affable and polite. Nor did he necessarily alarm the administration when, after hearing nothing about his request, he peppered the White House with letters urging a reply. After all, Washington had no shortage of pushy eccentrics looking for a White House handout.
But things quickly grew worse. Guiteau spent his days sitting in Lafayette Park across from the White House and stalking members of the cabinet in the hopes of getting some word on his career choice. Secretary of State James Blaine became so sick of Guiteau’s pestering that he finally blew up at him, hollering, “Never speak to me again on the Paris consulship as long as you live!” Guiteau could even be seen loitering in the White House itself, until the staff was given word that he was never to set foot inside the mansion again.
Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents Page 9