James Buchanan. Our 15th President. He was engaged to Ann Caroline Coleman. She passed away, which people speculated was a suicide over the engagement that she broke off days before her death. He never married and he never had children.
His fiancée's death struck Buchanan a terrible blow. In a letter to her father, which was returned to him unopened, Buchanan wrote "It is now no time for explanation, but the time will come when you will discover that she, as well as I, have been much abused. God forgive the authors of it [...] . I may sustain the shock of her death, but I feel that happiness has fled from me forever." The Coleman family became bitter towards Buchanan and denied him a place at Ann's funeral.
While I was looking for a dead President to feature for this, I never thought that this random pick would have such a tragic story to it. I bet every Presidents story has some sort of romance saga tied to it. Don't you think? Have they ever made a movie from this story? I would see this movie.
*Believe it or not, History was always my favorite subject and one of the few classes I never failed in High School. There's your History lesson for the day.
I am a bit of an amateur TR scholar. If you want sad, tragic love of a future President and how it shaped the rich and colorful life he went on to fully live, then read The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. Teddy's young wife died on Valentine's Day at age 22, and the same day his mother passed away - in the same house. Brief:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Hathaway_Lee_Roosevelt
I will have to check that out. I didn't want to touch on the obvious popular presidents. I wanted to find a story on the ones that have kind off been lost in the shuffle. Ya know? :)
ReplyDeleteI feel ya, and kudos for the Buchanan find.
ReplyDeleteTeddy's mom "Mittie" was often mentioned as being the inspiration for the Scarlett O'Hara character from Gone with the Wind. Makes ya wish you could sit with the family one evening in their Manhattan salon for dinner and listen to Mittie, her rich Dutch-American husband Teddy Sr, and little sickly intellectually insatiable Teddy as they bickered over events of the day...Mittie's brothers were officers in the Confederacy, while Roosevelt was keenly opposed to slavery.
I love that you know all this. Thank you. I have been also obsessing over the Marie Antoinette story and It might be my next blog. I wish I could be a fly on the wall at those times, in my big hair piece and huge dress.
ReplyDeleteI can learn a lot from you. Would love more history lessons from you.
It's long been speculated that Buchanan was gay. He and William Rufus King, Vice President to Franklin Pierce, openly lived together in Washington for years, and Andrew Jackson (among others) referred to King as Aunt Fancy and Mrs. Buchanan
ReplyDeleteWell, that explains why he never married or had children, and could be why she broke off the wedding plans at took her own life.
ReplyDeleteThat is soooo Andy Jackson to disparage political opponents with a slur. Perhaps our most racist President, he ordered the Trail of Tears to resettle/destroy the Cherokee Nation.
ReplyDeleteAdding insult to injury, we have to look at his disastrous '80's style big hair every time we change a twenty dollar bill...
See, I'm learning so much here, peeps. Hahahahahaha (to the second part) Awesome!
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