Truman's Very Bad Day

Franklin Roosevelt died suddenly on this day in 1945. He'd been dying for a long time, but nobody wanted to admit it. Losing him was too big a catastrophe to think about. A nondescript man in glasses was quickly sworn in to replace him, but nobody knew much about the guy. He was from somewhere in the Midwest. He wore a panama hat and liked to play the piano. Roosevelt had been president for so long it was hard to remember him not being president. Businessmen hated him, giving him little credit for rescuing the economy. The rich called FDR a traitor to his class. To the working man he was almost God. He was enormously self-confident and reassuring, and he was ubiquitous. People hung his picture in their homes and offices. Everybody knew his voice from the radio. Nobody had ever heard of Harry Truman. When Truman expressed his condolences to Mrs. Roosevelt she said she felt more sorry for him. He was the understudy who wakes up onstage. Everyone was looking at him, waiting for him to act, to say something so they'd know what he sounded like, wondering how quickly he would fail. He was sixty years-old. Harry Truman and Franklin Roosevelt each appear five times in A Book of Ages. Eleanor Roosevelt appears three times.

Lee at Appomattox

On this day in 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered his sword and his army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. He was 58, but looks considerably older in the photos we see of him. His beard was white and his physique showed the effects of ill health. Abraham Lincoln had offered him the command of the Union forces in 1861 but he turned him down. He chose to lead the Army of Northern Virginia instead, a romantic and doomed cause, but not a hard choice for him. He performed brilliantly, of course. Prior to the Civil War personal loyalties were to one's home state. It wasn't until afterwards that most people spoke about being Americans. They were Virginians or New Yorkers or Iowans.

Lee was treated generously in defeat, not hung as a traitor as Washington would have had he lost the Revolution. That our better angels prevailed is more surprising considering Lincoln's assassination a week later. Lee went on to be a university president and have riverboats named after him. He died five years later. His last words were "Strike the tent." Or so the newspapers reported. He said that his greatest regret in life was receiving a military education. Robert E. Lee appears four times in A Book of Ages. Grant appears twice, and Lincoln nine times.