Today on a farm near Corsica (now Blooming Grove), Ohio a son is born to staunch Baptist parents, the father a farmer and veteran of the Civil War. Growing up in the late decades of the century, Warren G. Harding becomes a newspaperman, following in his father’s footsteps (in addition to farming and a medical…
Today is the funeral of the one whom many already consider the greatest president ever. The East Room of the White House hosts the funeral services for President Abraham Lincoln. It is packed with distinguished guests including military officers (present is General Ulysses S. Grant), government officials (Supreme Court justices, senators, representatives, cabinet members, state…
In the middle of the bitter winter cold, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, embedded in the trenches near Petersburg, writes to the Confederate Secretary of War in the nearby Southern capital of Richmond. The subject is army desertion. “I have endeavored to ascertain the causes [of the] alarming frequency of desertions,” the general writes. Lee…