A Presidents Story Too: Another Novel of Power and Personality

By Brad McKim

Between Lincoln and FDR, the Presidency and the United States come of age

In the wake of the Civil War, fourteen men will succeed Abraham Lincoln and attempt to reunify the United States. As their personal tales intertwine and overlap on their way to the Presidency, they defer to Congress until it is clear that Democrats and Republicans are more concerned with the prerogatives of power and patronage than Lincoln’s pledge of freedom and opportunity for all Americans. The 19th-century Presidents battle with Congress to reform how jobs and other benefits are dispensed, while the Presidents of the early 20th century find themselves presiding over a country that has transitioned from an agricultural economy—supported by slave and immigrant labor—to an industrial economy generating the wealth that thrusts the country onto the world stage. Through it all, the Presidents continue the novel practice of handing over power peacefully, even in the face of a Depression that will challenge the United States’ newfound status as a world power. 

“Brad McKim is a masterful storyteller. He seamlessly wove the stories of our first 15 presidents together into a compelling, interesting, and informative narrative.” —Scott Barker, Author, The Kings of War: How Our Modern Presidents Hijacked Congress’ War-Making Powers and What to Do About It

“McKim weaves fascinating stories of presidential lives from their youth through early love affairs and careers, into political prominence. Not a retelling of common knowledge, this book reveals a fabric of personal stories not found in high school history books.” —Jeff Bensch, Author, History of American Holidays

“I have read countless books on the country’s chief executives and I learned something about each president that I never knew before. I could not put A Presidents Story down and can’t wait to read the sequel!” —Bradley Nahrstadt, Author, Alton B. Parker: The Man Who Challenged Roosevelt

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: Jan 31, 2024
• ISBN: 9781977272027

Book preview

A Presidents Story Too

Another Novel of Power and Personality

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2024 Brad McKim

v3.0

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Outskirts Press, Inc.

http://www.outskirtspress.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024900662

Cover Photo © 2024 National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution used with background image from Getty Images http://www.gettyimages.com. All rights reserved - used with permission.

Outskirts Press and the OP logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To Mom and Dad who nurtured my passions,

and to J.C. and Cal who gave my passions purpose

CONTENTS

Cast of Characters

PROLOGUE: May 16, 1868

PART I: LORD ROSCOE (1869-1881)

Chapter 1: Ulysses S. Grant

Chapter 2: Rutherford B. Hayes

PART II: REFORM (1881-1897)

Chapter 1: James A. Garfield and Chester Alan Arthur

Chapter 2: Grover Cleveland

Chapter 3: Benjamin Harrison

Chapter 4: Grover Cleveland

PART III: ROOSEVELT (1897-1921)

Chapter 1: William McKinley

Chapter 2: Theodore Roosevelt

Chapter 3: William Howard Taft

Chapter 4: Woodrow Wilson

PART IV: RECOVERY AND RUIN (1921-1933)

Chapter 1: Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge

Chapter 2: Herbert Clark Hoover

EPILOGUE: May 28, 1945

Author’s Note

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Andrew Johnson (1865-1869): Tennessee, Seventeenth President, Democrat. After being the only Senator from a Confederate state to stay loyal to the Union during the Civil War, the Republicans thought nominating Johnson as Abraham Lincoln’s re-election running mate would send a message of reconciliation to the vanquished Confederate States. The reconciliation took an unexpected turn when Lincoln became the first President to be assassinated and a Southern Democrat was suddenly in charge of securing the fruits of the Union victory.

Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877): Ohio, Eighteenth President, Republican. The Civil War General who led the Union to victory was more popular than even Lincoln, making his election the most inevitable since George Washington. He preferred horses and soldiers to politicians but, with no war to fight, it was the best job available to him.

Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881): Ohio, Nineteenth President, Republican. The three-time Governor of Ohio was not exciting, but he was a Civil War officer and was considered safe, until he won the most disputed Presidential election in history.

James A. Garfield (1881): Ohio, Twentieth President, Republican. Another prominent politician from Ohio, Garfield was as dynamic as Hayes was dull. Blessed with divine oratorical skills and good looks, he was poised to dismantle the spoils system that Martin Van Buren perfected, but then fate intervened.

Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885): New York, Twenty-First President, Republican. Not having learned caution in selecting Vice Presidential candidates after Andrew Johnson’s ascent, the Republicans nominated a spoilsman who would have made Van Buren blush. When Garfield died, however, Arthur surprised everyone, even those who thought they knew him well.

Grover Cleveland (1885-1889) and (1893-1897): New York, Twenty-Second and Twenty-Fourth President, Democrat. The first Democrat elected in a generation, Cleveland beat the spoils system and political machines not by attacking them, but by ignoring them.

Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893): Indiana, Twenty-Third President, Republican. One of the finest lawyers and orators in the country, Harrison labored in the shadow of his grandfather, General William Henry Harrison, the ninth President, and his namesake great-grandfather, one of seven Virginians to sign the Declaration of Independence. He proved to be as capable a soldier as his grandfather, but did not make anyone forget his great-grandfather.

William McKinley (1897-1901): Ohio, Twenty-Fifth President, Republican. A protégé of President Hayes, McKinley seemed ordained by his seemingly limitless political good luck and endearing humility, although it was a humility borne of seemingly limitless personal bad luck.

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909): New York, Twenty-Sixth President, Republican. The youngest man to ever serve as President, his restlessness and energy was infectious, until it became annoying.

William Howard Taft (1909-1913): Ohio, Twenty-Seventh President, Republican. His ambition to live the quiet life of a judge withered the day he married. It died the day he became best friends with Theodore Roosevelt.

Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921): New Jersey, Twenty-Eighth President, Democrat. A university professor who decided to test his theories from his days on Princeton’s faculty, first as governor of New Jersey, and then as President. Wilson’s rise to power was serendipitous. His precipitous fall stemmed from hubris…or the loss of his own faculties.

Warren G. Harding (1921-1923): Ohio, Twenty-Ninth President, Republican. The last in a long line of Ohio Presidents, Harding was easy to overestimate with his distinguished silver hair and silver tongue. As President, he decided that those who underestimated him were probably right.

Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929): Massachusetts, Thirtieth President, Republican. Silent Cal was more loquacious than believed, but not much. An enigma that presided over the incongruous Roaring Twenties, he had two things in his favor: A strong economy and Grace Coolidge.

Herbert Hoover (1929-1933): Iowa, Thirty-First President, Republican. World-famous as the Great Engineer and then the Great Humanitarian after World War I, he returned to the United States after twenty years of living and working abroad. He rarely saw a problem he could not fix. But, once he was President, his most dire predictions came true before he could fix them.

PROLOGUE:

MAY 16, 1868

Abraham Lincoln was a fool.

This heretical statement was not spoken aloud but reverberated in the beleaguered mind of Senator Edmund G. Ross of Kansas. Because of the sixteenth President’s foolishness, Senator Ross was now confronting his own political demise as he sat in judgment of Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth President of the United States.

With the Civil War all but over, Lincoln decided to use his second inaugural address back in 1865 to proclaim the utterly nonsensical plea that the North should behave with malice toward none, with charity for all… One month later, Lincoln was dead.

Rising to the rank of Major in the Northern Army, Ross returned to Lawrence at the end of the War and was immediately installed as editor of the Kansas Tribune. Ross was a dedicated admirer of Lincoln, but he winced as he recalled printing the speech. Couched as it was in Christian piety, the speech was certainly noble and in complete accord with Christ’s teachings on forgiveness. But, after hundreds of thousands of Union husbands, fathers and sons gave their lives to thwart southern treachery, their families and the rest of the Republican party were not enamored with the notion of forgiveness. They were hell-bent on punishing the southern states.

Edmund Ross was inclined to excuse Lincoln’s speech as naïve sentiment. But it was another decision that led Ross to conclude that the late President was imprudent. Lincoln allowed Andrew Johnson to be named as his running mate in the election of 1864.

Lincoln’s Vice President during his first term was Hannibal Hamlin of Maine. To be sure, Hamlin was occasionally irritating to Lincoln. By and large, however, Hamlin was harmless. And being harmless was a Vice President’s job. But the Republican Convention leaders told Lincoln that he needed to appeal to the southern border states. Hamlin was dispatched and Andy Johnson of Tennessee was named as the Republican candidate for Vice President. It did not seem to bother the Convention or Lincoln that Johnson was a Democrat. Johnson brought politically sacred balance to the ticket.

In 1864, Edmund Ross was Major Ross and far more concerned with carrying out his duties as a commander in the Union Army than in who Abraham Lincoln named as his running mate. Nonetheless, at the time, Ross briefly wondered why the Republicans were concerned about wooing southern votes by adding Johnson to the ticket. The southern states were not participating in the election since they were in open rebellion and did not consider themselves part of the Union. With only a few border states, Lincoln’s only challenge was to swing the tide of the war before election day to convince weary Northerners that the war had been worth their sacrifices. General Grant delivered precisely that result for the President and he won re-election easily. The Vice President pick was of little consequence. Until today.

Now, the folly of electing Andrew Johnson as Lincoln’s Vice President was the root of Senator Ross’ current predicament. At forty-two years old, Edmund Ross was at an ideal age to commence a long and, hopefully, lucrative career as a United States Senator. Ross certainly looked the part. Handsome and mildly charismatic, it was not hard to contemplate him maturing into a distinguished gentleman of the Upper Chamber. That was precisely what Governor Sam Crawford envisioned for his friend and fellow Union commander when he appointed Ross to the Senate in 1866.

The opportunity for Crawford to make the appointment only came about because the prior occupant of the seat, Jim Lane, was crazy. Lane served with Ross and Crawford in the Union regiments from Kansas. All three men were Republicans who were unmoved by President Lincoln’s call for grace for the South. Indeed, Lane made his position clear in a speech on the Senate floor when he said, I would like to live long enough to see every White man in South Carolina in hell, and the Negroes inheriting their territory. It would not wound my feelings any day to find the dead bodies of rebel sympathizers pierced with bullet holes in every street and alley of Washington. Yes, I would regret this, for I would not like to witness all this waste of powder and lead. I would rather have them hung, and the ropes saved! Let them dangle until their stinking bodies rot and fall to the ground piece by piece.

Crawford and Ross admired Lane’s passion but, even if they were not ready to embrace Lincoln’s magnanimous attitude, they were equally skeptical that the country would thrive in Lane’s preferred scenario. As Lane vacillated between hysterical tirades and puzzling despondency, Crawford and Ross were not surprised when Lane put a bullet in his head. Crawford was quietly relieved to send the understated Ross to replace Lane in the Senate. Ross was quietly delighted to go.

Crawford knew that Ross would continue Lane’s quest to thwart amnesty for the southern states without the theatrics. Both men believed that the southern states must be chastened for the calamity they wrought, but they also understood that that retribution could not be an extension of the war. The Confederacy lost and now its members needed to return to the Union with an appropriate measure of humility. Crawford and Ross did not believe that could be accomplished through Lincoln’s call for grace or Lane’s call for complete degradation. This debate between the extremes of forgiveness and punishment was what the United States Congress was calling Reconstruction.

Ross’ arrival in Washington was greeted with optimism by almost all of his Republican colleagues in the Senate. This was significant and anticipated by Governor Crawford when he appointed Ross. It was significant because, in reality, there were three major political parties in the United States in 1866. There were, of course, the Democrats, the party fashioned by Martin Van Buren in the 1820s and 1830s. Van Buren died out of step with the Democrats as he came to abhor slavery while the Democrats condoned or, at best, excused the peculiar institution as it was euphemistically called. Nonetheless, the Little Magician’s system of political patronage (or as Van Buren’s friend William Marcy put it, To the victor belong the spoils) survived.

The Democrats would only have a voice in government once the southern states were back in the Union. Predictably, they were fully committed to the Republican Abraham Lincoln’s call to forgive. To forget would be even better as far as the Democrats were concerned. Then they could get back to wielding the power inherent in the ability to distribute the spoils.

The other two parties were officially only one party: The Republican Party. Within that party, however, there were two factions. The Moderate Republicans were fewer in number but, more aligned with the handful of Northern Democrats than their fellow Radical Republicans. Some agreed with Lincoln while some thought the South still had lessons to learn. The latter favored Reconstruction that instilled those lessons but did not interfere with reuniting the country. More importantly, they valued getting back to continuing the country’s growth which, before the war, was occurring by leaps and bounds, despite the tensions over slavery.

Unfortunately for the Democrats and Moderate Republicans, the majority of seats in Congress were occupied by the remaining Radical Republicans. It was this division within the Republican party that Crawford hoped Ross could help bridge when he sent him to Washington. Until today, Ross did his part to broker peace within his party with some degree of success even though he fervently believed that the southern states’ perfidy should not be rewarded with a pardon. But, he also believed that the country needed the South in the Union to reach its indisputably divine (not to mention economic) potential.

The Radicals were seemingly indifferent to the country’s potential. They differed with respect to the degree of revenge to be extracted but they were unanimous that re-entry to the Union would be painful for every southern state. Reconstruction would have to be preceded by continued destruction. Before the War, the Radicals’ leaders were abolitionists railing against the sins of slavery and the moral depredations of the southern states. Before the War, they were a vocal minority, but a minority nonetheless. Now, they were running the United States Congress.

Edmund Ross moved to Kansas from Ohio when he was barely thirty years old. At the dead center of the country, Kansas became known as Bleeding Kansas as pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions fought, literally, to put Kansas in their camp. An ardent abolitionist, Ross became the publisher of the Topeka Tribune where he filled the pages with exhortations to the citizens of Kansas to vote to become a Free State. When Kansas entered the Union as a Free State in 1861, Edmund Ross was acknowledged as the leader of the successful campaign. His zeal for the cause of eradicating slavery led him to join the Union Army the following year.

So, it was a fact that Edmund Ross was a fully committed abolitionist. Since his arrival in Washington he typically voted with the Radicals. He did not, however, particularly like them.

Sitting in the second row of desks on the Senate floor, Ross was looking across the room at the undisputed leader of the Radicals, Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania. Stevens was not a senator, he was a member of the House of Representatives. He was only on the Senate floor to serve as the lead prosecutor in the trial of President Andrew Johnson. The House had passed eleven articles of impeachment against the President and it was the job of Stevens and his fellow House prosecutors to convince 36 members of the Senate to convict Johnson and remove him from office.

Working with Abraham Lincoln might have been difficult for the Radicals. Working with Andrew Johnson was impossible. Ross turned his head and looked down the row where he sat at the seat that Andrew Johnson occupied seven years earlier. At the outset of the war, Johnson sat alone in this row as the only southern senator to not join the Confederacy. Johnson believed that the Constitution forbade secession and that his southern brethren were leading their states to annihilation. He was, of course, correct.

Until his decision to assume his seat in the Senate, Johnson was possibly the most popular man in Tennessee and commonly spoken of as presidential material. After his decision, he became the most reviled man in Tennessee but was suddenly revered in the North as a man of great principle. So much so that the Republicans recruited him as Lincoln’s running mate.

Before and after his decision, however, Johnson was not only a Democrat but a devoted son of the South. Those in the North who elevated Johnson to hero status failed to appreciate that Johnson sympathized with the South in every respect except for its right to secede under the United States Constitution. Johnson fervently believed that the North had no right to interfere with the southern states’ laws or institutions. This included his unyielding conviction that equality for the newly liberated Negroes was out of the question. As he vetoed every measure the Republicans passed to protect the Black man and punish the South, the Radicals’ collective fury erupted in the first-ever impeachment of a United States President.

Ross knew that even the most passionate Radicals would concede that the articles of impeachment were politically motivated. The primary alleged offense was that Johnson fired his Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in violation of the Tenure of Office Act which required Senate approval for the President to dismiss cabinet members appointed by him. The Act was passed over Johnson’s veto as an overt attempt by the Republicans to gain some control over the intractable Johnson. Many doubted that the Act’s constitutionality, but the Radicals’ animosity for Johnson blinded them to legal niceties. Indeed, the very reason for passing the Act was to prevent Johnson from dispatching Stanton, a close ally of the Radicals.

When the House impeached Johnson, Ross’ first reaction was that conviction by the Senate would undoubtedly follow. After all, Congress passed a law and the President intentionally violated that same law in order to challenge the law and Congress. Over the last three months, however, Ross began to waver. Today, he would be called upon to cast his vote.

As Ross looked back at Stevens, he caught Stevens looking at him. Stevens looked away quickly but Ross knew that this was but one of many stolen glances his direction by the Radical leaders. His reputation for reasonableness and accommodation had the prosecutors worried that he might fail to vote with the Radicals. With six Moderate Republicans and all Democrats having declared their intent to vote in favor of the President, the Radicals could not afford to lose one more vote.

Ross shivered. Stevens was not an attractive man. After being in his presence for the last three months, Ross concluded that Satan himself probably bore an uncanny resemblance to Thaddeus Stevens. Even as he tried to not betray his concern over Ross’ vote, Stevens could not overcome the fact that his 76-year-old face had hardened permanently into a bitter scowl. The result was that whether Stevens was saying I hate you or I love you, a threat always seemed to lurk just beyond his words. And despite the fact that he was crippled with arthritis and had to be carried onto the Senate floor each day, Stevens was no less intimidating.

Stevens was not the only one stealing looks at Senator Ross. Benjamin Wade, President pro tempore of the Senate was staring at Ross from his seat on the opposite side of the floor in the front row. Wade averted his gaze when Ross caught his eye as well.

Like Stevens, Ben Wade was a Radical. The senior senator from Ohio, the title of pro tempore was largely bestowed on one of the longer serving members of the Senate. It meant little. Until today.

Because Andrew Johnson succeeded to the Presidency on Lincoln’s death, there was no Vice President. Without a Vice President, the President pro tempore of the Senate became the President when the President died. Or was convicted and removed from office.

Despite the fact that Stevens, frankly, scared him, Ross could not deny that Thad Stevens was a true abolitionist and that, no matter how sinister he might appear, his objection to Andrew Johnson was more principled than political. Benjamin Wade, on the other hand, cast his lot with the Radicals but, more than that, with Benjamin Wade. Ross was not alone in being dismayed when Wade announced that he would cast his vote in favor of conviction despite Wade himself standing to gain more than anyone by the removal of Johnson. Whatever mystical effect Thaddeus Stevens had on Edmund Ross, there was no similar effect when Senator Wade looked his way.

There were others who were clearly poised to capitalize on the removal of Andrew Johnson. In the last row sat two senators with a passionate interest in a Benjamin Wade Presidency, but for different reasons. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts slouched in his seat watching the roll-call of the senators and awaiting his opportunity to rise and say Guilty. He would rise slowly. He did everything slowly since he was almost beaten to death in 1856 by Preston Brooks of South Carolina. In that year, Sumner, who was prone to rhetorical theatrics and vulgar imagery, likened a South Carolina senator to a pimp for the institution of slavery. Two days later the senator’s cousin and fellow South Carolina congressman, Mr. Brooks, appeared at Senator Sumner’s desk and proceeded to beat him with his cane until the cane shattered and Charles Sumner lay in a bloody heap under his desk.

Sumner spent the next three years convalescing from his injuries. During that time, the citizens of Massachusetts re-elected him to the Senate despite his inability to serve. The re-election of Sumner was sent and received as a message to the South. In 1859, Sumner returned to the Senate and despite being much weaker physically, resumed oratory against the South and slavery that was fully intended to incite and to cause the listener to blush…or worse. To have decimated the South only to have a southerner seated in the President’s chair blocking Sumner’s thirst for revenge against southern gentlemen like Preston Brooks was excruciating. For Sumner, the removal of Andrew Johnson was a point of honor.

Seven seats to Sumner’s left, a senator from New York, having voted Guilty, sat back down. Unlike Charles Sumner, Roscoe Conkling had little interest in points of honor, only points of power. Conkling joined the Senate in 1867 but was already well-known to his new colleagues. Their acquaintance was not just from Conkling’s three terms in the House of Representatives. More relevantly, they knew Roscoe Conkling because he controlled political rewards and, thus, politics in New York. As a young man, Roscoe Conkling listened to the conversations his father had with visitors like Martin Van Buren and Thurlow Weed. He learned early that successful political careers were built on the backs of a disciplined political machine that dispensed reward and punishment, or spoils, in direct proportion to party loyalty. By the time Conkling arrived in the Senate, he was the undisputed master of the Republican party in New York and, therefore, of enormous consequence to aspiring politicians and job seekers.

Roscoe Conkling was certainly committed to the Radicals’ version of Reconstruction. For him, however, removal of Andrew Johnson had less to do with his antipathy for the President than that the President would not approve Conkling’s recommendations for federal offices as readily as Conkling preferred. For a man thoroughly used to getting his way, that was unacceptable. The sooner Johnson was gone, the sooner Conkling could resume a steady stream of rewards to his political supporters and those who he intended to coerce into being a supporter.

Edmund Ross knew the difference between these two senators. He did not particularly care for either of them. Both were egotistical in the extreme, not to mention vain. Both loved to dominate the Senate floor with grandiose speeches. Both were at the heart of rumors throughout the Capitol of adulterous scandals but for different reasons. After over fifty years of bachelorhood, Sumner was recently married but his wife was already rumored to be seeing other men. Conkling, on the other hand, was married but a notorious philanderer. The Senate gallery was always filled with well-turned-out young women when Senator Conkling was due to speak. And Senator Conkling was not above a well-placed wink or well-timed gaze at his chosen woman in the gallery in the midst of one of his interminable but, nonetheless, captivating speeches.

Despite Sumner’s vanity and incapacity for diplomacy, Ross could not deny that the senator from Massachusetts was sincere. Ross found Sumner abrasive and coarse but he did not doubt Sumner’s zeal and intention to right the injustices imposed on the Black man. Ross knew Conkling’s commitment to the freed slaves only went as far as was advantageous to Senator Conkling and the political fortunes of the New York Republican party.

Conkling was handsome, did not smoke and kept himself in mint physical condition by training as a boxer on a daily basis. More than one story was in circulation of Conkling’s fondness for taking his skills outside of the ring when needed. If the threats of physical beatings were not enough, Conkling underscored his partiality for necessary violence by openly displaying the small pistol that he carried on his belt. But, most of all, Edmund Ross was of the same mind as Conkling’s and Ross’ fellow Republican, Representative James Blaine of Maine when he referred to Conkling as having a turkey gobbler strut. In short, Ross found the humorless Conkling intensely unlikeable.

More than Stevens, Wade, Sumner, Conkling and the other Radical leaders though, Edmund Ross knew his vote would be in reaction to the man whose bald head Ross gazed at in the row immediately in front of him. Sam Pomeroy was Ross’ fellow senator from Kansas and was the one politician in the room who was being sure to not look in Ross’ direction. Senator Pomeroy did not possess Stevens’ or Sumner’s zeal or Wade’s or Conkling’s ruthlessness. But he knew that spoils were the way to continue to hold his seat as he had done now for seven years. He made it clear upon Ross’ arrival in Washington that Kansas patronage would run through his office. Ross was surprised to find that his most difficult foes in Washington were not Democrats, Moderate Republicans or zealous Radical Republicans. His chief nemesis was his fellow Republican senator from Kansas.

It was this that caused Edmund Ross to revisit his position regarding impeachment. Ross rationalized that the President, the Democrats and Moderate Republicans were correct in arguing that the impeachment was a purely political act to get rid of an unpopular President. In the absence of something more serious than firing a cabinet member in violation of a dubious law, the office of the President would be subject to the threat of impeachment and removal for a wide array of minor offenses anytime the President deigned to act contrary to Congress’ wishes. The separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution would become meaningless as control devolved unchecked to the Congress.

But Edmund Ross was a realist. Try as he may to assume the role of a statesman, he had learned that keeping a job in the United States Senate required the ability to get his constituents appointments, influence and access. If Benjamin Wade became President, Wade’s close friend and ally Senator Pomeroy would have an unbridled ability to benefit his fellow Kansans. Edmund Ross, on the other hand, would be diminished, even if he did cast the vote that enabled a President Wade to exist. But, if Andrew Johnson were to continue as President of the United States, he would be beholden to the Senator that made it possible for Johnson to finish his term…

Ross had no illusions about his future. A vote of not guilty would be his political death. Kansas was not Andrew Johnson territory. The citizens of Kansas endured too much violence and mayhem at the hands of the pro-slavery forces that attempted to make a cotton-less state adopt slavery to forgive a senator that failed to rid the country of the despised Johnson. If Ross voted guilty Wade would favor Ross, but not as much as Wade’s old friend Pomeroy.

Neither Ross nor Andrew Johnson would be re-elected. General Ulysses S. Grant, the Union’s hero of the Civil War, would be the next President. Ross would support Grant. Before he did so, Ross would garner as many appointments from the grateful President Johnson as he could to assure that there were at least some indebted Kansans with an interest in helping Edmund Ross make a living when he left the Senate in two years. He was banking on the President’s penchant for deluding himself that defeating impeachment meant that re-election was still possible.

Ross tore up the remarks he planned to make when he voted guilty and placed a new piece of paper imprinted with United States Senate Chamber before him. He waited for the Senate Clerk to call his name. He rose to complete silence. Not guilty.

The silence was broken by a mixture of gasps, groans and a few subdued cheers. The withered Thaddeus Stevens signaled and two attendants raced forward to carry him from the Senate chamber as he bellowed This country has gone to the devil! But for the gravity of the moment, Ross might have smiled as he thought this an odd statement coming from Satan himself.

Senator Edmund G. Ross then took up his pen and began to write:

"PRIVATE

To the President,

With respect to the Superintendency that was the subject of our last interview, I write most respectfully to suggest…"

PART I

LORD ROSCOE

(1869-1881)

CHAPTER 1

ULYSSES S. GRANT

Washington: July 1870

Grant

Ulysses S. Grant liked to keep things simple. As a General in the Union Army he had as keen a grasp of complex strategy as any other graduate from West Point. Irrespective of the strategy, however, Grant insisted it must serve one goal: the quick and complete obliteration of the enemy. Put simply, Grant believed that short wars were more humane than long wars. Short wars were also preferable for a man like Grant who grew nauseous at the sight of blood.

Abraham Lincoln put Sam Grant in charge of the entire Union Army when he realized that Grant was more than willing to ruthlessly use the North’s enormous advantage in manpower, machinery and weapons. When he did just that and accepted General Lee’s surrender, Grant became the most popular person in the North, even more than Lincoln himself. In the vanquished Confederacy, he was not popular by any means, but he was begrudgingly respected by just enough southerners for his graciousness in victory to be elected President in 1868.

Grant’s preference for simplicity could also be intensely personal. Over the course of his 48 years he developed an abiding principle: Being employed was better than not being employed. Being employed in a job with a set term like President of the United States was even better. While President Grant did not see himself as a politician and wondered why anyone would think he was suitable to be President, he warmed quickly to the idea of a job that guaranteed a salary for four years. After watching the much more experienced politician Andrew Johnson bumble through four years as President, Grant figured he could not do much worse.

Grant knew that his history of making a living outside of the Army or government service was not impressive. Despite his contempt for the Mexican War and President Polk’s poorly disguised land grab, Grant did his duty and served ably. More importantly, what he learned of his fellow officers in that war gave him a tremendous advantage when he led his troops against those same officers two decades later in the Civil War.

It was during the two decades between the Mexican and Civil War when Grant learned that he was meant to be a soldier and a statesman. This was because he also learned that he was not a businessman or real estate speculator or farmer. For that matter, he concluded that he was not even a very good soldier when there was not a war to fight.

After the Mexican War, Grant lingered in Mexico for a while and determined that he would very much like to return to Mexico after a quick trip to Illinois to ask Julia Dent to marry him. Mexico’s warm weather and the relaxed, friendly people appealed to Grant. He just had to convince Julia and figure out how to make a living. He did neither. Julia did agree to marry him. She did not agree to living in Mexico.

After marrying Julia in 1848, Grant stayed in the army and was assigned to Fort Vancouver in the newly formed Washington territory. Grant traveled between Portland, Oregon and Vancouver with his regiment and, as with Mexico, became enamored with his posting. Once more, he began to conjure up dreams of business ventures and enticing Julia to join him in the fertile, wondrous frontier. The California Gold Rush was in full swing so the entire West Coast was awash in speculators and opportunists. Food and supplies reached astronomical prices.

The Washington Territory proved to be one of the least dangerous assignments a soldier could draw. The boundaries were, by and large, settled. The local Indian tribes were docile having adopted many of the habits, including the worst vices, of the newly arrived White men. There was epic violence and gambling among the new residents, but they were mostly a problem to be handled by the local authorities rather than the Army. As a result, Grant and his regiment found themselves with a wealth of free time on their hands.

It was becoming clear that not many of the hordes seeking fortune in the West actually found their fortune. But many small fortunes were being made selling supplies to the hapless treasure hunters. Grant and his fellow idle army officers decided that their path to riches lay in growing potatoes. They bought land on credit and began planting in earnest.

The next spring when the Columbia River flooded and wiped out their crop, Grant was surprised to find himself relieved to not have a harvest to work. If he had, he would have found a paltry market for his product since, as near as he could tell, the whole Northern Pacific Coast had gone into farming at the same time as him. The surplus assured that no profit would be made by Grant, with or without a successful harvest.

That was the point at which Ulysses S. Grant began to drink. A lot. He no longer dreamed of bringing Julia west, but of how to explain to her that his meager officer’s salary would never cover the debt he accumulated in the ill-fated potato farming scheme. As he struggled to conceive of a plan to escape his financial woes, he spent his days wallowing in whiskey-induced pity.

Fortunately, before Grant’s drinking could impair the one source of income that he had, he was promoted and sent to San Francisco. After a short stay, he decided to resign from the army and return to his wife’s family farm near St. Louis, Missouri where Grant tried his hand at farming once again. This time he lasted a few years before, again, failing. By 1858 he sold everything but the farm itself and went into partnership selling real estate. Real estate did not prove to be his calling either.

By 1860, broke and depressed, Grant relented and did what he tried to avoid doing for two decades: He returned to Illinois and went to work in his father’s store. By now Grant and Julia had four children and Grant did not have the luxury of gambling on military adventures and entrepreneurship to make a living. He settled into the boring life of a store clerk who loved his wife and children too much to do otherwise.

Then, the five most remarkable years in the short history of the United States commenced. By the end of those five years the store clerk in Galena, Illinois would be the obvious choice to be elected President in 1868.

Unlike the Mexican War, Grant had no reservations about the righteousness of the Union cause. Rather than expanding the power of slave states as the Mexican War did, this war promised to put an end not only to slavery, but the arrogance of southern politicians. It took little convincing for Grant to agree to command a regiment from Illinois. Colonel Grant, soon to be Brigadier General and then General Grant, assumed his command. He had not stocked a store shelf since.

While Grant found slavery morally repugnant, he was not a strong abolitionist before the war. Indeed, Grant agreed with Lincoln that the federal government should not interfere with slavery where it already existed. It simply should not be expanded to new states. Grant also agreed with Lincoln that Blacks were clearly inferior to Whites, but that inferiority should not result in a lifetime of bondage. It was not until the southern states declared their intent to dissolve the Union in order to protect the right to keep their slaves that Grant decided that it was time for him to become a soldier again. Grant did not believe a state should be able to apply to join the Union but then leave in order to protect an immoral institution. His decision did not sit well with his wife’s family of slaveowners, but Julia stood by his decision. Conversely, Grant’s own abolitionist father finally expressed pride in his son.

It was not until Grant seized the advantages of the Northern Army in both manpower and machines that Grant began to change his view of the cause for which he was fighting. First, most of the Black regiments in his Northern Army proved to be as good or better than his White troops. As they helped Grant’s forces drive deep into the South, Grant saw the wretched existence of the slaves. Grant remembered growing melancholy as he contemplated the conditions he was willing to obliviously abide until the Confederacy was created by the southern states.

As Grant consolidated his victories in the West, Abraham Lincoln became intrigued with the man who seemed to throw caution to the wind at every opportunity. While Grant’s superiors bemoaned his independence and recklessness to Lincoln, the President became preoccupied with the enigmatic Grant’s results. By 1864, Lincoln had heard enough. He asked to meet Ulysses S. Grant and promptly put him in charge of the entire Union Army. By the end of the year, General Grant was a household name and well on his way to the White House, whether he knew it or not.

A month after Lincoln made his second inaugural speech promising malice toward none and charity for all, he invited General and Mrs. Grant to join him and his wife for a play at Ford’s Theatre. Grant politely declined with the excuse that Julia wanted to leave for a visit with their children. When Grant learned that Lincoln was killed that night, he knew that John Wilkes Booth would have used a bullet on Grant himself if he had been sitting in the box with the President. He might have even used his first bullet.

Grant’s intense loyalty to Abraham Lincoln was on full display as he arranged the fallen President’s funeral and stood at the head of the procession with tears in his eyes. He remained the Chief General of the Army and placed himself in the service of the new Commander-in-Chief and President, Andrew Johnson.

Grant never doubted the political skill and cunning of President Lincoln and understood that, as Lincoln’s General, he himself was subject to the intrigue and gossip that was endemic in a political city like Washington D.C. After Lincoln’s death, however, Grant found himself uncomfortably wedged between Johnson, on the one hand, who proceeded to do all he could to make re-joining the Union painless for his fellow southerners (in the hope that the southern state Democrats would nominate Johnson in 1868 to run for President in his own right) and, on the other hand, the Radical Republicans, who were intent on making the former Confederate states grovel for re-entry. Both Johnson and the Radicals knew that Ulysses S. Grant stood between them and their goals. And both knew that by March of 1869, General Grant was likely to become President Grant.

In the immediate wake of Lincoln’s death, battle lines were drawn between President Johnson and Congress. As Johnson’s and the Radicals’ enmity for one another intensified, Grant still naively assumed that all shared his desire to see the Union restored as quickly and peacefully as possible. As the ensuing four years unfolded, Grant despaired of finding anyone in Washington who wanted anything other than more time in office and more power. He found the Radicals largely populated by the self-righteous and the bloviating, but he found President Johnson genuinely alarming.

In 1867, Johnson dismissed Secretary of War Edwin Stanton and asked Grant to take Stanton’s place. This was mildly surprising to Grant since he and Johnson did not agree on much. But, by this point, Grant was beginning to understand that Johnson hoped to neutralize Grant’s popularity by making him part of the cabinet, rendering it more unseemly for Grant to seek the nomination for President. Because the Radicals were already threatening to impeach Johnson for firing Stanton in violation of the Tenure of Office Act, Grant said he would accept the appointment but only in a temporary capacity until Stanton’s status was resolved. His fondest hope was that Stanton would be restored and that Grant could resume his post as head of the army working for Stanton, who he respected. Johnson was not pleased with Grant’s tentative acceptance but having Grant on Grant’s terms was better than not having Grant at all.

By the time Edmund Ross cast the deciding vote in the impeachment trial acquitting Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant remained as the one man above the fray. At the time Ross was casting his vote, Grant privately thought removal of President Johnson would not be a bad outcome. But, now that he was President himself, he was thankful that removing a President from office was not an easy task. Losing this job was not something he would like to explain to Julia.

Johnson gradually gave up on the idea of renomination and, with little effort on his part, Grant was nominated and then elected as the eighteenth President. Johnson refused to attend Grant’s inauguration. He refused to give a reason but Grant knew it was because of Grant’s failure to clearly side with Johnson in the impeachment battle. A man more concerned with precedent and tradition than Grant would have been bothered that he was the first President since Andrew Jackson to not have his predecessor attend his inauguration. Grant was not that man and was, frankly, relieved to not start his time as President in a carriage with the petulant Andy Johnson.

Now, over a year into