Chapter 1: An Overview

On average the sixteen presidents are around 57 years old when they enter office, with the youngest being Franklin Pierce at forty-eight and the oldest, William Henry Harrison at sixty-eight.

Eleven are highly educated, some through personal tutors, others by graduation from the nation’s top colleges. Lincoln has the least formal education, followed by Jackson, Van Buren, Taylor and Fillmore. Eleven also pass the bar, although not all practice law.

Six are military men. Washington commands the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, while Monroe suffers a near fatal wound during the conflict, and Jackson, at age fourteen, is active in the militia. “Old Hickory” then fights the British a second time, ending the War of 1812 with his stunning victory at New Orleans. William Henry Harrison, son of a Founding Father, joins the army in 1791 and serves until 1798. His fame rests on triumphs in the Northwest Territory Indian Wars, at Tippecanoe in 1811 and the Battle of the Thames a year later, where the rebel Chief Tecumseh is killed.

Both Taylor and Pierce serve in the Mexican War, with the former rising to Major General status and winning crucial clashes at Monterrey and Buena Vista, and the latter missing out on most of the action after a horse falls on him and damages his leg. Lincoln is the other president with some military service – in 1837 during the Blackhawk War – but it is very brief and he later laughs it off, saying that he fought more mosquitoes than Indians.

Andrew Jackson engages in another form of violence, dueling, with scores of challenges and one fatality, Charles Dickinson, in a dispute over a horse racing debt. Dickinson is a lawyer and renowned marksman, and his first shot lodges near Jackson’s heart, so close that it is never removed from his body. Despite the wound, Jackson remains standing and delivers a round to Dickinson’s abdomen which proves fatal a few hours later.

Jackson is also involved in the first attempted assassination of a president, occurring in 1835 on the Capitol grounds. The assailant’s gun misfires twice before he is arrested and committed to an insane asylum. The second assassin of course is Wilkes Booth who successfully murders Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater, six days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.

Six presidents claim Virginia as their home state; two favor Massachusetts, New York or Tennessee; with one each from New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Illinois

Several are among the wealthiest men in America, with Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, and Madison all possessing fortunes worth over $100 million in present day purchasing power. Washington inherits a small plantation and then adds to it, especially through land grants awarded for his service during the French & Indian and Revolutionary Wars. He is believed to be the richest man of his time. Jefferson and Madison are both first-born sons who, under the custom of primogeniture, inherit their father’s vast properties.

On the other hand, Andrew Jackson is born into poverty and makes his income through a law practice, several businesses, including a general store and a whiskey distillery, and the eventual acquisition of two plantations. Only the last two presidents before the war – Buchanan and Lincoln – lack fortunes.

Nine of the first twelve presidents own slaves, seven of them while in the White House. Only two of them – Washington and Polk – stipulate in their will that all be freed upon the death of their surviving spouses.

With the exception of James Buchanan, all of the presidents are married, and most have several children, with John Tyler fathering a total of fifteen between his two wives. As is common at the time, ten suffer the loss of one or more child either at birth or in their youth. Franklin Pierce’s loss is particularly tragic as his third and only surviving child is killed in a train crash just before he is inaugurated. So too with Lincoln and his wife Mary who suffer lasting grief after their favorite son Willie dies in 1862.

Most presidents enjoy very long lifespans for the era: John Adams lives to ninety; Madison, Jefferson and JQ Adams are octogenarians; Van Buren, Jackson, Buchanan, Monroe, Fillmore and Tyler survive into their seventies. The shortest lifespans belong to Polk (53) and Lincoln (56).

Aside from Lincoln, two others will die in office: William Henry Harrison in 1841 and Zachary Taylor in 1849. In both cases, the cause of death appears linked to drinking contaminated water piped into the White House from the waste-filled Potomac River. As with these two, the exact causes of death for many others are conjectural. Strokes appear to claim three: JQ Adams, Tyler and Fillmore; respiratory-related illnesses another three: Washington, Van Buren and Buchanan; and two more for heart failure: John Adams and Madison. The rest are singular, albeit familiar: Jefferson (cancer), Monroe (TB), Jackson (kidney failure), Polk (cholera), Harrison (typhoid fever), Taylor (gastroenteritis), Pierce (liver cirrhosis), Lincoln (gunshot).

Profiles Of The Early Presidents