Thanks to Jim, by the way, for suggesting the titles for these short biographical sketches.

Today's sketch is of Daniel Edgar Sickles. I came across his name while looking at the Hayes/Tilden election. Sickles was, in 1876, the fellow who realized that if the disputed states could declare for the Republicans, Hayes would win the electoral college. Sickles immediately sent telegrams to the governors of those four states, signing the name of the chairman of the Republican Party, who was too drunk to do it himself. When I read about this, I began to wonder, just who was this Sickles fellow anyway? Turns out, he was a pretty colorful character himself and worth a closer look. more...

Posted by: Random Penseur at 05:13 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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I am sometimes intrigued by the people who populate the periphery of history. These are people who, while they may have been famous or notorious in their own era, have been relegated to the footnote of history in our time. These are people who may have been very accomplished in their own right, but who are known to us today primarily because of their association with someone who has greater historical gravitas or because they played what is now felt to be a minor role in an important event. Seriously, isn't this a fascinating concept? These "peripherals" led full lives and may have done astonishing things, some of them, yet they are eclipsed by their contemporaries by reason merely of their association. Who remembers the names of any of the men who went with Perry to Japan? Or climbed Everest with Hillary? Or was the second in command to William the Conqueror? Are they any less deserving of our attention?

Well, sometimes you find these peripherals as they put in an appearance in a history or a biography. Sometimes, if you look closely, you can see them in the corner of a book or peeking out from behind the drapes of history, as it were, where the author left them while he or she is writing about someone else.

I just observed one such elusive person. As I mentioned before, I am reading McCullough's biography of Theodore Roosevelt as a child and young man. Teddy was a world stage historical personage. His maternal uncle, James Bulloch, was a pretty compelling figure in his own right.

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Posted by: Random Penseur at 04:54 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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