If my name ever goes into history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.
— A. Lincoln, 1863Rutherford B. Hayes
(presidential term: 1877-1881)
“The President and his family have taken up their residence at the Soldiers’ Home for the summer.”
— Harper’s Weekly, July 24, 1880.
President Hayes stayed at the Soldiers’ Home every year of his presidency, between the months of June and November. Like Buchanan and Lincoln, Hayes used the Home as a refuge from the summer heat of downtown Washington. Unlike his predecessors, Hayes kept a detailed journal that chronicles many of his experiences at the Soldiers’ Home. One entry records his interaction with a Soldiers’ Home resident who was a veteran of the War of 1812.
“July 10, 1879. - Yesterday the surgeon of the Home, Dr. Huntington, left word that there was at the hospital an old soldier named Sergeant Gaines who fought under Croghan at the defense of Fort Stephenson. This morning, taking my six o'clock walk, I called at the hospital and inquired for Sergeant Gaines. I was told that he was the old gentleman wearing a straw hat sitting on the porch. I approached him, he arose with a pleasant smile and greeted me with genuine politeness as I told him that I was President Hayes. He was rather below medium height with a good kindly face, and an intelligent-looking man. In reply to questions, he said: ‘"I enlisted at Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1812 at the age of fourteen. I was eighty last Christmas. Was born in Frederick, Maryland; went to Lexington, Kentucky…”
— The Diary and Letters of Rutherford B. Hayes.
ed. Charles Richard Williams. 1922.
The two excerpts from Hayes’s diary (below) illustrate the mix of leisure and business Hayes experienced at the Soldiers’ Home.
“This morning I have risen before 6 A. M. and will begin my morning walks. I weighed yesterday one hundred and ninety pounds. Warm morning walks will take off during this month at least five or eight pounds. I walked this morning over to the National Cemetery and east-wardly until the clock struck 7 A. M., when I returned by the President's gate…”
— July 8, 1880
“I am told by Mr. Rainey, colored Congressman from South Carolina, that in Sumter and other counties the whites are resorting to intimidation and violence to prevent the colored people from organizing for elections. The division there is still on the color line….”
— October 5, 1878
Hayes’s personal recollections reveal a President taken with the healthy air of the Soldiers’ Home who devoted some of his time there to contemplating the complex issues afflicting the nation during his presidency.