James Monroe Bankhead James Monroe Bankhead James Monroe Bankhead (1783 - 1856) a U. S. Army officer in the War of 1812, Second Seminole War, and Mexican–American War, who rose to the rank of brevet brigadier general. James Monroe Bankhead was born on May 24, 1783 in Port Royal, in Caroline County, Virginia. Bankhead joined the U. S. Army in 1808, as a captain in the 5th Infantry Regiment. Bankhead and Winfield Scott entered the army on the same day and they remained lifelong friends. Before the War of 1812, Bankhead served in various commands and staff assignments. During the war he was
James Monroe Unlike Jefferson, Monroe was rarely attacked as an atheist or infidel. In 1832 James Renwick Willson, a Reformed Presbyterian minister in Albany, New York, criticized Monroe for having "lived and died like a second-rate Athenian philosopher." Monroe owned dozens of slaves. According to William Seale, he took several slaves with him to Washington to serve at the White House from 1817 to 1825. This was typical of other slaveholders, as Congress did not provide for domestic staff of the presidents at that time. As president of Virginia's constitutional convention in the fall of 1829, Monroe reiterated his belief that slavery