James Monroe"The Last Cocked Hat"

Born April 28, 1758, in Westmoreland County, Virginia. He left college at William & Mary to fight in the Revolutionary War, where he was wounded at the Battle of Trenton crossing the Delaware with Washington. He studied law under Thomas Jefferson and became a protégé of the Virginia political dynasty, serving as a U.S. Senator, Governor of Virginia, and Minister to France, where he helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. He went on to serve as Secretary of State and, briefly and simultaneously, Secretary of War under President James Madison during the War of 1812. In 1816 he was elected the 5th President of the United States and won a near-unanimous re-election in 1820, presiding over the so-called "Era of Good Feelings," a period of relative political unity. His presidency is best remembered for the Monroe Doctrine (1823), which warned European powers against further colonization or interference in the Americas, and for the Missouri Compromise (1820), which addressed the explosive issue of slavery's expansion into new states.