Taylor and W. H. Harrison are better known for dying in office. Grant is known as terrible a president as he was a great general (he should be known as a writer - take a look at his Memoirs). Eisenhower usually gets judged as okay but his stock has risen the longer George W. Bush remains in the White House.
But there were other generals that wound up elected as President. I admit that I owe knowing this to Gore Vidal's novel 1876 than school. All quotes come from Wikipedia. The other generals making President are: Pierce, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, and Harrison.
Pierce:
Pierce was a Democrat and a "doughface" (a Northerner with Southern sympathies) who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. Later, Pierce took part in the Mexican-American War and became a brigadier general.Hayes:
Breveted to Brigadier General in December 1862, he commanded the First Brigade of the Kanawha Division of the Army of West Virginia and turned back several raids. In 1864, Hayes showed particular gallantry in spearheading a frontal assault and temporarily taking command from George Crook at the savage Battle of Cloyd's Mountain and continued with Crook on to Charleston. Hayes continued commanding his Brigade during the Valley Campaigns of 1864, participating in such major battles as the Battle of Opequon, the Battle of Fisher's Hill, and the Battle of Cedar Creek. At the end of the Shenandoah campaign, Hayes was promoted to Brigadier General in October 1864 and breveted Major General. Hayes had been wounded three more times and had four horses shot from under him during his campaigning.[1]Garfield:
...His victory brought him early recognition and a promotion to the rank of brigadier general on January 11.
Garfield served as a brigade commander under Buell at the Battle of Shiloh and under Thomas J. Wood in the subsequent Siege of Corinth. His health deteriorated and he was inactive until autumn, when he served on the commission investigating the conduct of Fitz John Porter. In the spring of 1863, Garfield returned to the field as Chief of Staff for William S. Rosecrans, commander of the Army of the Cumberland.
During the American Civil War, Arthur served as acting quartermaster general of the state in 1861 and was widely praised for his service. He was later commissioned as inspector general, and appointed quartermaster general with the rank of brigadier general and served until 1862.
Harrison served in the Union Army during the Civil War and was appointed Colonel of the 70th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment in August 1862. The unit performed reconnaissance duty and guarded railroads in Kentucky and Tennessee until Sherman's Atlanta Campaign in 1864. Harrison was brevetted as a brigadier general, and commanded a Brigade at Resaca, Cassville, New Hope Church, Lost Mountain, Kennesaw Mountain, Marietta, Peachtree Creek and Atlanta. Harrison was later transferred to the Army of the Cumberland and participated in the Siege of Nashville and the Grand Review in Washington D.C. before mustering out in 1865.
Other Presidents served in the military but did not make general. We know about JFK's military service but other Presidents with military service include McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Truman, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and George H. W. Bush. I skip over Reagan because making military films does not seem like much experience with the military.
Lincoln:
He was elected captain of an Illinois militia company drawn from New Salem during the Black Hawk War, and later wrote that he had not had "any such success in life which gave him so much satisfaction."[8]McKinley:
In June 1861, at the start of the American Civil War, he enlisted in the Union Army, as a private in the Twenty-third Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry.The regiment was sent to western Virginia where it spent a year fighting small Confederate units. His superior officer, another future U.S. President, Rutherford B. Hayes, promoted McKinley to commissary sergeant for his bravery in battle. For driving a mule team delivering rations under enemy fire at Antietam, Hayes promoted him to Second Lieutenant. This pattern repeated several times during the war, and McKinley eventually mustered out as Captain and brevet Major of the same regiment in September 1865. In 1869, the year he entered politics, McKinley met and began courting his future wife, Ida Saxton, marrying her two years later when she was 23 and he was 27.
Truman:
Truman enlisted in the Missouri National Guard in 1905, and served in it until 1911. With the onset of American participation in World War I, he rejoined the Guard. At his physical in 1905, his eyesight had been an unacceptable 20/50 in the right eye and 20/400 in the left. Reportedly he passed by secretly memorizing the eye chart.[10]
Nixon:Before going to France, he was sent to Camp Doniphan, adjacent to Fort Sill, near Lawton, Oklahoma for training. He ran the camp canteen with a Jewish friend, Sergeant Edward Jacobson, who had experience in a Kansas City clothing store as a clerk. At Ft. Sill he also met Lieutenant James M. Pendergast, the nephew of Thomas Joseph (T.J.) Pendergast, a Kansas City politician. Both men would have profound influences on later events in Truman's life.[11][12][13][14]
Truman was chosen to be an officer, and then battery commander in an artillery regiment in France. His unit was Battery D, 129th Field Artillery, 60th Brigade, 35th Infantry Division, known for its discipline problems.[15] During a sudden attack by the Germans in the Vosges Mountains, the battery started to disperse; Truman ordered them back into position using profanities that he had "learned while working on the Santa Fe railroad."[15] Shocked by the outburst, his men reassembled and followed him to safety. Under Captain Truman's command in France, the battery did not lose a single man.[15] The war was a transformative experience that brought out Truman's leadership qualities; he later rose to the rank of Colonel in the National Guard, and his war record made possible his later political career in Missouri.[15]
During World War II, Nixon served as a reserve officer in the United States Navy, attaining the rank of lieutenant commander. He received training at Naval Air Station Quonset Point, Rhode Island and Ottumwa, Iowa, before serving in the supply corps on several islands in the South Pacific, commanding cargo handling units in the SCAT.[2] There he was known as "Nick" and for his prowess in poker, banking a large sum that helped finance his first campaign for Congress.Out of all these, did their military experience make them a better President? Managing the complexities of Allied command in Europe seemed to have done something for Eisenhower that it did not do for Grant. Washington was better known for having not used the military to take political power. Jackson was Jackson and his military experience (which actually goes back to the Revolution) gave him a hatred of the British. Otherwise, military service seems less likely as preparation for a good presidency than, say,being a communty organizer.
Those Presidents serving during our greatest crises had no military careers or minimal ones: Madison, Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, Truman, Reagan and George W. Bush. Excepting the last, all acquitted their tasks as President with skill and their lack of military experience was unimportant to their success.
McCain has the distinction of being a true war hero. I think he only shares that distinction with (maybe) the Civil War veterans, Theodore Roosevelt, and Truman. Like the others, he used his military service into elective office. Unlike the others, he had no civilian career before the military. Only McCain makes the argument that his surviving the Hanoi Hilton made his military bona fides which make him qualified for being President. I suggest that Senator McCain lacks the experience or ideas in foreign affairs that Theodore Roosevelt possessed and he lacks the seasoned cabinet Truman inherited from FDR. I would point out that Eisenhower's CIA hatched the Bay of Pigs fiasco carried out by JFK. For all his years, Senator McCain has no more experience in the Executive Branch than did JFK.
I think it a grand thing that the Republicans think it necessary for the President to have some experience in military affairs instead of what we have in the White House. I am glad that they have someone who can actually find countries on the map. It would be a better thing if they gave him more ideas to work with, but he does have more than George W. Bush. But John McCain cannot distinguish Shia from Sunni and he kisses the rump of the most disastrous Presidency we have yet to see. He is not the second coming of Theodore Roosevelt.
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