About Me
I was bornFebruary 14, 1824 in Pennsylvania. I was a career U.S. Army officer and the Democratic nominee for President of the United States in 1880. I served with distinction in the Army for four decades, including service in the Mexican-American War and as a Union general in the American Civil War. Known to my Army colleagues as "Hancock the Superb," I was noted in particular for my personal leadership at the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. One military historian wrote, "No other Union general at Gettysburg dominated men by the sheer force of their presence more completely than Hancock." As another wrote, "his tactical skill had won him the quick admiration of adversaries who had come to know him as the 'Thunderbolt of the Army of the Potomac.'" My military service continued after the Civil War, as I participated in the military Reconstruction of the South and the Army's presence at the Western frontier.After the Civil War, my reputation as a soldier and my dedication to conservative constitutional principles made me a quadrennial Presidential possibility. My noted integrity was a counterpoint to the corruption of the era, for as President Rutherford B. Hayes said, "[i]f, when we make up our estimate of a public man, conspicuous both as a soldier and in civil life, we are to think first and chiefly of his manhood, his integrity, his purity, his singleness of purpose, and his unselfish devotion to duty, we can truthfully say of Hancock that he was through and through pure gold." This nationwide popularity led the Democrats to nominate me for President in 1880. Although I ran a strong campaign, I was defeated by Republican James Garfield by the closest popular vote margin in American history.I will write a better and more detailed account of my life at a later time.
