Presidents and Military Careers - Part 3
The President serves as the Commander-in-Chief of America’s military. However, military experience is not required to serve as President. More than half of our Presidents had military service, and many served during wars.
Military experience and leadership can burnish a politician’s reputation and has assisted some military veterans in winning the Presidency.
In Part 1, we covered the Founding Fathers, Presidents from the Revolutionary War period. These were the first five Presidents – Washington through Monroe.
In Part 2, we covered the Presidents from the 1820s until the Civil War.
In this part, we will cover the Civil War generation. For the remainder of the 19th century, most of our Presidents served in the Civil War on the Union Side.
The Presidents in this time period:
Andrew Johnson (1865 to 1869)
Ulysses S. Grant (1869 to 1877)
Rutherford Hayes 1877 to 1881)
James Garfield (1881, assassinated while in office)
Chester Arthur (1881 to 1885)
Grover Cleveland (1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897)
Benjamin Harrison (1889 to 1893)
William McKinley (1897 to 1901, assassinated while in office)
Andrew Johnson
As the Southern States seceded from the Union starting in 1860, their senators resigned from the U.S. Congress. Andrew Johnson was the only exception; when Tennessee joined the Confederacy, he remained in the Senate. When Union armies occupied parts of Tennessee, Lincoln appointed Johnson as military governor of the state, with the title of Brigadier General. He did not serve in any military unit.
In 1864, Lincoln wanted a unity ticket for President. He selected Johnson, a Democrat who had supported the Union. They ran as the National Union party. Johnson became President upon Lincoln’s assassination.
Ulysses S. Grant
Grant is one of only three Presidents who served as overall Commander of the Armed Forces (Washington and Eisenhower were the others.) Some historians believe he saved the Union twice: first as the general who led the Union armies to victory in the Civil War; and second, as the President who restored the Union through the post-Civil War reconstruction period. A West Point Graduate, Grand also fought in the Mexican-American War.
Grant’s Tomb
Grant’s 1868 campaign slogan was “Let Us Have Peace.” Grant completed his memoirs, still in print, shortly before he died of cancer. He ends the memoirs as follows:
“I feel that we are on the eve of a new era, when there is to be great harmony between the Federal and Confederate. I cannot stay to be a living witness to the correctness of this prophecy, but I feel it within me that it is to be so. The universally kind feeling expressed for me at a time when it was supposed that each day would prove my last, seemed to me the beginning of the answer to Let us have peace”.
The slogan is displayed at the entrance to Grant’s tomb in Manhattan.
Rutherford Hayes
Hayes was almost 40 years old when the Civil War broke out in 1861. He volunteered and served for the duration of the war. He was wounded several times and promoted to Major General by the end of the war.
James Garfield
Garfield joined the army when the Civil War started. He fought in several engagements, including the bloody 1862 Battle of Shiloh. He eventually was promoted to Chief of Staff under General Rosecrans, participating in the 1863 Battle of Chickamauga, near Chattanooga. He was a Major General when the war ended.
His Presidential campaign included ‘Waving the bloody shirt,’ a reference to a campaign scare tactic to remind Northern voters that the Democratic Party was responsible for the Civil War. If they held power, they would reverse the results of that war and dishonor Union Veterans. Garfield’s popular vote margin was under 2,000 out of about nine million votes cast, the narrowest margin of any Presidential election.
Chester Arthur
Garfield became President after Garfield’s assassination. He served as Quartermaster in charge of equipping New York troops. Although given the title of Brigadier General, he did not serve in any military unit.
Grover Cleveland
The Civil War draft allowed draftees to hire a ‘substitute’ for $150. Grover Cleveland exercised this option and avoided serving in the Civil War. I would think that would have hurt him with voters, but he twice won election to the Presidency. First, he won a narrow victory in 1884 election against a Republican who also had not served in the Civil War. He then lost to Benjamin Harrison, a Civil War veteran in 1888, but won a rematch against Harrison in 1892.
Benjamin Harrison
Harrison volunteered for the army and fought in several battles, including the 1864 capture of Atlanta under General Sherman. He ended the war as a Brigadier General.
William McKinley
Mckinley was the last Civil War veteran to serve as President. He served under Rutherford Hayes, the only time one President served in the military reporting to another President. McKinley was involved in several battles, including Antietam. This 1862 battle was the bloodiest single day in the war, and McKinley came under heavy fire, although he was not injured.
Summary
Of the nine Presidents during this period, eight served in the Civil War.
After the Civil War ended in 1865, America was at peace for almost 50 years until World War I in 1916 (with the brief exception of the short Spanish-American War of 1898.) As a result, from 1901 until 1945, all of the Presidents, but one, were not military veterans.
Part IV of this series continues in our next entry.