when william henry harrison was inaugurated, there was a large turnout. he had been a national hero. so he was inaugurated very successfully in his president torres. he was inaugurated on march 4, which was the old date. march 4, 1841. date,d 30 days to the april 4, 1841. he was in office for 30 days. and he died. harrison, who was , is of that curse interesting. there are conflicting reports. natural causes, one was that president harrison was well in his years of age 68, was considered very, very old at the time. he was the oldest president in our history, before ronald reagan. attended his inauguration, it was freezing cold weather, he did not wear a coat. he did not wear a hat, he did not wear a scarf, he did not wear gloves. and the reason for this was, he character assassin and in some of the newspaper as being too old to be president of the united states. they referred to him as granny harrison. some historians believe that he had taken off his coat and the rest of the paraphernalia of his clothing, and he did this to show that he was bureau and st

great to get together and celebrate the career of franklin pierce and william henry harrison and john tyler. i understand the point of a three-day weekend. there is a kind of a participatory medal now for the presidents. they all get lumped together. some of this is a justifiable suspicion of the great man theory of history. that we had in the 19th century with thomas carlyle. popular biographies glorified lincoln and washington and teddy roosevelt. we now are more sensitive to democratic politics. diversity and the panoply of social history. i am not a devotee of the great man theory of history. i don't think individuals, with rare exceptions such as lincoln, determine everything in history. it doesn't really work for history which is much more multifaceted. i do think that we lose something as a nation if we are not celebrating people who were great. not all the presidents have and not all presidents will. people like lincoln and washington and roosevelt have done so. we should pay some attention to that. it was short, i did my best. [laughter] the other thing is part of the interpr

william henry harrison owned 12 slaves. he unsuccessfully lobbied to legalize slavery in indiana which was opposed by thomas jefferson. john tyler, a virginian, staunchly defended the preservation of slavery. he is oftentimes voted one of the worst presidents. james k. polk owned slaves in the white house, commissioning his wife to free their slaves after her death. the 13th amendment beat them to the punch. she did not die until the 1890's. zachary taylor owned many slaves. but generally advocated against the expansion of slavery. this was a surprising maneuver for taylor. which challenged the ire of proslavery ideologues. taylor died in 1850 during a heated debate over the expansion of slavery. andrew johnson and ulysses s. grant, two post civil war presidents, also at one point owned slaves. the main point here despite a dearth of resources we find that each unique and interesting president was surrounded by interesting enslaved people. historians must continue to find the stories and secure their place in the canon of a

and william henry harrison, "i died in 40 days." then we get to the presidents who were bad in another way. who faced crisis and did a terrible job. these are serious candidates for the worst that we should talk about. you know, herbert hoover, obviously comes to mind here, someone who, before his election, over, i have been talking about my book "republic ," and had this great campaign film in 1928 called "master of emergency." he was seen as this wizard. during the mississippi flood of 1927, the worst natural disaster in american history until katrina, he was commerce secretary and was deputized in the film shows him pulling horses out of the river and feeding bedraggled children. but then he gets an emergency and doesn't do anything. he does a little bit with reconstruction finance corporation toward the end, but largely seen on all accounts has, he could not rise to the challenge. it is interesting, having written about coolidge, he has a whole cult of conservative admirers, trickle-down economics, ronald reagan put his portrait

--lard fillmore, on william i am william henry harrison, i died in 40 days. presidents to the who were bad in another way. who faced crisis and did a terrible job. these are serious candidates for the worst we should talk about. herbert hoover, obviously he comes to mind here. electionho, before his , i have been talking about my book "republicans been," and had in 1928at campaign film called "master of emergency." he was seen as this wizard. europe after world war i, during the mississippi flood of 1927, the worst natural disaster in before katrina. he was deputized, pulling horses out of the river and feeding bedraggled children. but then he gets an emergency anything.t do he does a little bit, the reconstruction finance corporation toward the end, but largely on all counts, he could not rise to the challenge. it is interesting having written about coolidge, he has a whole host of conservative admirers. trickle down economics, ronald reagan, but hoover the conservative also renounced him. really has no plans at all. another possibility and a comment about r

was a guy named thomas elder in 1840, the karl rove of his day, i campaign operative for william henry harrison and he said passion and prejudice, properly aroused and directed, do as well as principal and reason in a party contest, i would say they kicked principle and reason's but in american electoral history. when you go back to 1800, i do like that people bring up thomas jefferson as the paragon of democracy, as one of our founding fathers but when you go to 1800 which was only the fourth election in american history where you have federalist candidate john adams against republican thomas jefferson, it is one of the dirtiest campaigns we have ever had even to this day, where thomas jefferson hired a writer named james calendar to assail john adams as a hideous hermaphrodite with -- neither a man nor a woman. they attacked him as getting in bed with the king of england, new american democracy over to the king of england and the federalists attacked thomas jefferson for being an atheist, you had to hide your daughters from him because he was quite promiscuous. one of my favorite political at

. >> by the virtue of the death of his predecessor, william henry harrison, who died very early in his term and had been the oldest man elected to the presidency. interestingly john tyler supposedly got the news of harrison's death and took the oath of office in brown's hotel on pennsylvania avenue which became his favorite hotel we also stayed during the washington peace conference. >> and he and harrison were from the same county in virginia. >> win without ever happen again? >> that's right. they were neighbors from the berkeley plantation and sherwood forest. >> joe, aside from the obvious things, the lack of finding supplies when robert e. lee and the army were marching through, and is-getting surrounded on three sides at appomattox, is say discreet in your estimation the biggest disaster, the main reason for this winter? >> i think so. that was the major defeat on that long retreat, the weeklong retreat. the army was cut in half. in fact, lead saw them coming, the survivors come at the hill toward him and he said has the army been dissolved? and it looked like it was going to be