Analysis: Wesley Clark as Running Mate, Vice President on the 2008 Democratic Ticket

Ten of the 42 men who have been President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces attained the rank of general in the military, most famously, George Washington, the first president. Nine of those men were elected to the office, and one -- Chester A. Arthur, who served briefly as a brigadier general in the first years of the Civil War -- acceded to the office after the death of his president, James Garfield, who also served as general during the War of the Rebellion. In fact, the election of 1880 was unique in that the two major candidates for the presidency, the Republican Garfield and the Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock, were both battlefield generals from the War Between the States, as was third party candidate John W. Phelps of the American (Anti-Masonic) Party.

The period 1864-1880 saw each of the five presidential elections contested by at least one man who had served as a general during the Civil War, and each of the four men who served as president from 1869 through 1885 had obtained general's rank during the war.

At least 16 men who have held general's rank in the U.S. Army or Volunteers (militia) have contested the presidency since Lieutenant General George Washington (subsequently raised to the rank of General of the United States Armies in 1976) ran uncontested in 1789 and 1792. Two of the 16, Thomas Pinckney and John C. Frémont obtained their general's rank after their run for the presidency, but Frémont, in particularly, had the reputation, foremost, as a military officer when he ran for president as the first candidate of the Republican Party in 1856. (After having an unspectacular run as a general officer during the Civil War, he briefly mounted a run against incumbent Abraham Lincoln with a splinter group from the Republican Party but dropped his bid.)

General Wesley Clark, in uniform

Credit: U.S. Department of Defense Photo

Copyright: Public Domain (Wikipedia Commons)