Beech Tree News Network

What else do we know about some of our U.S. Presidents?  Ulysses Grant: Hand drinker; after graduation from West Point, rose to rank of general; fought in Civil War battles of Chattanooga, Richmond, and Vicksburg; given command of all Union Armies in 1864 by Lincoln. 
    When the war was over Grant allowed any Confederate soldier, who claimed a horse or mule, to take the animal home with him, “to be put to work back on the farm.”  Grant also allowed each confederate officer to keep his pistol and sword; -with the promise the officer would only use it for peaceful purpose. President Andrew could not read or write before he married.  His wife helped him to become literate.  Andrew Jackson fought many duels, we assume before he became president.  Abe Lincoln studied law from a copy of Blackstone’s Law Commentary, which he found in the bottom of a barrel he had traded for when he ran a store.
    Dwight Eisenhower, former allied commander in Europe in World War II, smoked four packs of cigarettes a day.  After his Army uniform when he put on Civilian clothes, even when he was president, he wore his belt buckle off to one side.  “She”, as he was fondly known, died too soon-from heart trouble.  When Teddy Roosevelt was president, he fashioned a basket attached to a long rope.  With this he lowered and retrieved his kids from the second story of the White House.  One of his aides said, “What you need to know about Teddy is, he’s only six years old.”  Once when Ronald Reagan visited a blind children’s school.  The last thing he did was to have all the press and photographers leave the room.  Then he sat down in the floor and let the children go over his face with their hands.
Harry Truman was not a hard drinker.  He did not smoke.  He did take a drink of bourbon now then-never to excess.  Harry always washed his own socks and underwear, even after he was in the White House.  When Calvin Coolidge was vice president, President Harding succumbed to pneumonia and died, after a short time in office.  Vice president Coolidge was visiting his father and mother in Massachusetts.  He got the news of the president’s death.   They immediately left and went to the house.  Calvin, after neighbors were gathered as witnesses, was sworn in by his own father, as the thirtieth president of the United States.  Calvin Coolidge’s father was a county magistrate.  The elder Coolidge later comments “We hoped it was legal. I guess it was, we never heard anything to the contrary.”  Under Calvin Coolidge, all American Indians were given U.S. Citizenship.  Trail trip #37:  Never sell your saddle; life is a long-long ride.
                            Kindest regards….