Glenn Vance

Our Tallest and Shortest Presidents

I just fin­ished read­ing Geof­frey Perret’s excel­lent book “Lincoln’s War: The Untold Story of America’s Great­est Pres­i­dent as Com­man­der in Chief”. It’s a great read, espe­cially for some­one like me who was never very inter­ested in any­thing to do with the Civil War. In it Abra­ham Lin­coln becomes less mythic, as he has become today, and more human, both­ered by the strug­gles with life, the Con­fed­er­acy and Con­gress that he must deal with on a 24 hour basis.

But on the lighter side of hav­ing the pos­si­bil­ity of the Union torn asun­der for­ever, he was the tallest pres­i­dent we’ve had — 6 ft 4 in.¹ He often would talk about how he never had to look up to any­body since he was always the tallest man in the room. On meet­ing a wounded Union sol­dier that was taller than him, he remarked, “Hello, com­rade. Do you know when your feet get cold?”

James Madi­son, the pres­i­dent that got us into prob­a­bly our most point­less war² was our short­est pres­i­dent, com­ing in at just 5 ft 4 in.

And our tallest first lady? Eleanor Roo­sevelt. She was 6 ft tall. While Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd, was prob­a­bly our short­est first lady, mea­sur­ing in at 5 ft 2 in.³

1. He nar­rowly beats out Lyn­don B. John­son who comes in just under Lin­coln at 6 ft 3½ in. John­son was also known for using the toi­let in front of under­lings he wanted to intim­i­date. [↩]
2. The War of 1812. You remem­ber it — Wash­ing­ton D.C. got burned by the British? [↩]
3. The info for this piece came from WIkipedia and also from “Lincoln’s War: The Untold Story of America’s Great­est Pres­i­dent as Com­man­der in Chief” by Geof­frey Per­ret. [↩]

14. June 2008 by Glenn Vance
Categories: History | 1 comment