Blast from the past
ISSUE NO. 7.5 // THE PEACEMAKER
FLASH BACK: February 28, 1844
Former President John Quincy Adams was invited to float down the Potomac aboard the USS Princeton with several hundred fancy high-ranking government officials (and other important people) to see the “Peacemaker” in action. As its name obviously implies, the “Peacemaker” was a big-ass-long-range-wrought-iron gun. (I imagine it was primarily loaded with testosterone.)
Luckily, JQA declined the invitation. When fired one too many times, the “Peacemaker” exploded, killing a bunch of people. Among the dead were President John Tyler’s Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of State, an enslaved man, and Senator Gardiner. Our newly widowed 54-year-old president was aboard but unharmed.* It’s possible he was below deck flirting with Julia, Senator Gardiner’s 22-year-old daughter.
FLASH FORWARD: A few months later, President Tyler married Julia. They had a bunch of kids, adding to Tyler’s already-substantial brood… bringing his total to 15. They lived happily ever after. The end.
*It would have been a hot mess if Tyler had died. I mean… a hotter mess than it already was. Tyler was only president because President William Henry Harrison died. At the time, we didn’t even have a plan for what to do when a president died in office. Tyler set the precedent, but himself didn’t have a VP … so… that would have put Willie Person Mangum at the helm. In short, if a giant cannon named “Peacemaker” killed the president, a guy whose name is a simple anagram of a type of gun (magnum) would have succeeded him.
Doodle from John Quincy Adams: A Public Life, a Private Life by Paul C. Nagel
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