List of fictional United States presidencies of historical figures (A–G)
| List of fictional United States Presidents |
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| A–F |
| G–M |
| N–T |
| U–Z |
| Unnamed fictional presidents |
| fictional presidencies of historical figures |
| A–G |
| H–L |
| M–R |
| S–Z |
| Candidates |
| Vice Presidents |
The following is a list of real or historical people who have been portrayed as President of the United States in fiction, although they did not hold the office in real life. This is done either as an alternate history scenario, or occasionally for humorous purposes. Also included are actual US Presidents with a fictional presidency at a different time and/or under different circumstances than the one in actual history.
A
- In the alternate history novel For Want of a Nail: If Burgoyne Had Won at Saratoga by the business historian Robert Sobel, John Adams was a leading figure in the North American Rebellion (1775–1778) and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. In June 1775, he was named a delegate of the Second Continental Congress, where he and Thomas Jefferson argued strongly in favour of seeking independence from Great Britain. The following year, Adams appointed himself, Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin to the committee which drafted the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote the first draft of the Declaration, which was edited by the other committee members, then presented to the Congress on June 28, 1776, where it underwent further revision before being ratified on July 2, 1776 and signed on July 4, 1776. In June 1778, after Congress adopted the Carlisle Proposals and returned the colonies to British rule, Adams was arrested and brought to London to stand trial for treason. He and Jefferson were both convicted and executed in 1779. After their deaths, thousands of formers rebels migrated from the colonies to New Spain in what became known as the Wilderness Walk (1780–1782). It was led by General Nathanael Greene and the participants included James Madison, James Monroe, Alexander Hamilton, Benedict Arnold and the 13-year-old Andrew Jackson.
- In the alternate history short story "Though the Heavens Fall" by Harry Turtledove contained in the anthology A Different Flesh, John Adams was a candidate for the office of Censor of the Federated Commonwealths of America in 1804.
- In Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory alternate history series, John Adams served as the 2nd President from March 4, 1797 to March 4, 1801, as he did in real life. Adams and other Northern Founding Fathers such as Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Hamilton were treated much more favourably in the version of history taught in the United States following the War of Secession (1861–1862), in which the Confederate States of America achieved its independence with the support of the United Kingdom and France, than his colleagues from the south such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. In the 20th century, Adams' portrait was used on the United States five-dollar bill.
- In the short story "Black Earth and Destiny" by Thomas Easton contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, John Quincy Adams lost the 1824 election to Andrew Jackson, who became the 6th President.
- In a parallel universe featured in The Disunited States of America by Harry Turtledove in which the United States did not reach the compromise of a bicameral legislative branch at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and the various states became independent nations by the early 1800s, John Quincy Adams was the head of state of the country of Massachusetts in 1837. That year, he led his country through the Second Northeastern War against New York, successfully annexing the county of Rhode Island. An angered citizen of Providence, Rhode Island subsequently attempted to assassinate Adams, but failed. Prior to 2097, a film was produced depicting the events of the war and the assassination attempt. While it was broadcast in the relatively open climate of California, the film was banned in the politically conservative Virginia for fear of prompting an assassination.
- In a parallel universe featured in the Sliders Season One episode "The Weaker Sex" in which women held the positions of power and influence and men were treated like second class citizens, Susan B. Anthony had served as President during the late 19th century.
- In the alternate history Dark Future novel series by Kim Newman, Spiro Agnew succeeded Barry Goldwater as President. His own successor was Charlton "Big Chuck" Heston.
- In Stephen King's The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla, Father Callahan briefly wanders into an alternate reality where Spiro Agnew is president and supports an unspecified NASA terraforming program.
Aaron Burr Alston
- The grandson of Aaron Burr as well as the son of Theodosia Burr Alston and Joseph Alston. In "The War of '07" by Jayge Carr in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Aaron Burr Alston becomes the 4th President on September 14, 1836 upon the death of his maternal grandfather, to whom he had been vice president. It is implied that the presidency will henceforth be a hereditary office, making the United States a de facto monarchy or family dictatorship, as Alston's vice president is Paul Aaron Burr. It should be noted that in reality, Aaron Burr Alston died on June 30, 1812 at the age of 10 due to a fever. His grandfather therefore outlived him by more than 24 years.
- Benedict Arnold takes charge of the American Revolutionary cause after George Washington dies from pneumonia at Valley Forge and the disintegration of his army, in the story "Arnoldstown" by Mitchell Cummings. In a series of brilliant campaigns, Arnold snatches victory from the jaws of near-certain defeat and goes on to become the First President of the United States and its most revered Founding Father. The story's name is derived from the US capital in this timeline being "Arnoldstown, D.C.", with his name also being commemorated in the State of Arnoldia on the Pacific Northwest and numerous other placenames.
- In the short story "How the South Preserved the Union" by Ralph Roberts in the anthology Alternate Presidents, David Rice Atchison, the President pro tempore of the United States Senate and a prominent pro-slavery activist, took office as the 13th President when both his predecessor Zachary Taylor and Vice President Millard Fillmore were killed in a carriage accident in 1849. Several months after President Atchison's accession, the American Civil War broke out on April 17, 1849 with the secession of Massachusetts from the Union and the Second Battle of Lexington and Concord, from which the rebelling abolitionists, who styled themselves as the New Minutemen, emerged victorious. New Hampshire and Vermont seceded shortly thereafter and were soon followed by the rest of New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The seceding states banded together to form the New England Confederacy with Daniel Webster as its first and only President and the revolutionary abolitionist John Brown as the commander of its army. The war came to an end in 1855, two years after President Atchison had issued a proclamation promising that any slave who fought in the United States Army would be granted his freedom following the end of the war and that any factory slave who worked satisfactorily would be granted his or her freedom after the war and would be paid for that work from then onwards. He was succeeded by Stephen A. Douglas, who became the 14th President and introduced the Civil Rights Act 1861 which abolishes slavery in the United States in its entirety.
B
- James Baker is elected President in 1996 (possibly already having served a first term beginning in 1993) in the story "Prince Pat" by George Alec Effinger in the anthology Alternate Kennedys. He was defeated in his bid for re-election in 2000 by the 37-year-old Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, the youngest son of former President John F. Kennedy.
- In John Crowley's novel Little, Big (1981), the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa wakes up after centuries of magical sleep. He adjusts well to the modern world to the extent of successfully becoming the President of the United States and ruling as a tyrant.[1]
- Alben W. Barkley succeeds Franklin D. Roosevelt as the 33rd President in Robert A. Heinlein's novel To Sail Beyond the Sunset. He in turn is succeeded in 1949 by George Patton.
- In the first Southern Victory Series novel How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove, James G. Blaine was elected President in 1880, the only Republican other than Abraham Lincoln to hold that office. Blaine was elected by Maine as a Republican to Congress in 1862, a major accomplishment in a year when the Confederate States of America had won the War of Secession (1861–1862) with the support of the United Kingdom and the France, gaining its independence, and the Republican Party was being made to pay. He served for the next seven terms, earning a reputation as a fiery orator and debater in a minority party. As the people of the United States grew tired of the conciliatory stance the Democrats took towards the Confederate States, the Republicans soon began regaining seats. In the 1878 elections, following Democratic President Samuel J. Tilden's unpopular decision to remove the twelve stars representing the states of the Confederacy from the flag of the United States, the Republicans regained the Congress. Blaine's star rose dramatically, and in 1880, he was the Republican Party's nominee for President. He won on an anti-Confederate platform. Blaine was immediately put to the test. The Confederacy recoiled at the return of a "Black" Republican to the presidency. Moreover, Confederate States President James Longstreet had been counting on the Democrats' indifference to successfully purchase the states of Sonora and Chihuahua from the Second Mexican Empire in 1881. President Blaine, backed by the popular will and anger of the American people, moved to block the purchase by threat of war. Longstreet, confident in his country's alliances with the United Kingdom and the French Third Republic, defied Blaine and the Second Mexican War began. It soon became clear that Blaine and the United States were out of their depth. The United States Army was woefully unprepared, suffering setbacks on multiple fronts. When Washington, D.C. came under Confederate artillery fire in late 1881, Blaine evacuated the seat of government to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he established his residence in the Powel House. He was the final US President to use the White House as his official residence. While Washington, D.C. remained the de jure capital of the United States and continued to used for official functions such as inaugurations and state funerals, Philadelphia was the de facto capital from 1881 onwards. Benjamin Harrison, the grandson of the Whig Party President William Henry Harrison, served as his Secretary of War and consequently shouldered much of the blame for the United States' military failures during the war. After over a year of bloody fighting, the United States sought an armistice. The Confederate States successfully took possession of the Mexican states. For the second time in a generation, the United States had lost a war while under Republican leadership. Further humiliating Blaine at a personal level, the only territorial concession the United States made was northern Maine, his home state, which was annexed by Britain into Canadian province of New Brunswick. The Republican Party had split in 1882, with most joining the wayward Democrats while former President Lincoln's supporters joined the Socialist Party, which soon replaced the Republicans as the nation's second party. Ironically, President Blaine, in his military defeat, had laid the foundation the United States' eventual victory in the Great War (1914–1917) through two acts. Firstly, on April 22, 1882, Blaine declared a holiday to commemorate the United States' defeat called Remembrance Day. This day soon birthed a political ideology which the reinvigorated Democrats adopted as their own. Secondly, Blaine formed political ties with the German Empire, which eventually led to the alliance known as the Central Powers. He later went on to lose the 1884 election in a landslide, retiring to obscurity. Only truly die-hard Republicans revered him. President Blaine's defeat marked the beginning of 36 consecutive years of Democratic control of the Powel House which only came to an end with the election of the first Socialist president Upton Sinclair in 1920.
- Chastity Bono is mentioned in The Simpsons episode "Bart to the Future" as president sometime before Lisa Simpson.
- Sonny Bono is mentioned as President of the United States in the movie The Demolionist (1995) set in the near future. His reaction to a mortar attack on The White House was that it was "Sad, really sad, and kind of freaky."
- John Wilkes Booth was President in the DC Comics "Earth-Three" alternate history, and was assassinated by actor Abraham Lincoln. (No detailed explanation given of how this came about; this is just one example of Earth-Three being "the place where everything was the opposite of our world".)
- In the alternate history novel The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, John W. Bricker was elected as the 33rd President in 1940, succeeding John Nance Garner. Like President Garner, the Republican failed to combat the Great Depression and remains strongly isolationist. Thus, the United States had insufficient military capabilities to assist the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union against Nazi Germany, or to defend itself against Japan in the Pacific. In 1941, the Nazis conquered the USSR and then exterminated most of its Slavic peoples. The few whom they allowed to live were confined to reservations. In the Pacific, the Japanese destroyed the entire United States Navy fleet in a decisive, definitive attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Thereafter, the superior Japanese military conquered Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand and Oceania during the early 1940s. Afterwards, the Axis powers, each attacking from opposite fronts, conquered the coastal United States, and, by 1948, the United States and other remaining Allied forces had surrendered. Japan established the puppet Pacific States of America out of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Oregon, parts of Nevada and Washington as part of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. The remaining Mountain, Great Plains and Southwestern states became the Rocky Mountain States, a buffer between the PSA and the remaining USA, which became a Nazi puppet state in the style of Vichy France. Having defeated the Allies, the Third Reich and the Empire of Japan became the superpowers and consequently embarked upon a Cold War.
- In one of alternate realities depicted in The Coming of the Quantum Cats by Frederik Pohl, Jerry Brown was President in 1986. Considered weak by one of the characters in his timeline, he was largely a puppet ruler, with the military being the real force governing the country.
- In Ward Moore's novel Bring the Jubilee, one of the time travelling characters in the alternate reality witnessed the 1896 presidential election, where he had to resist the temptation of covering the confident bets made by McKinley's supporters, who were unaware that William Jennings Bryan would go on to serve three terms as President. He was the candidate for the Populist Party.
- In the short story "Plowshare" by Martha Soukup in the anthology Alternate Presidents, William Jennings Bryan was elected as the 25th President in 1896 over William McKinley. His vice president was Arthur Sewall. He ended the Spanish–American War by granting full independence to Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Hawaii. Only 36 years old at the time of his election, he was the youngest man ever elected to the presidency. President Bryan served one term from 1897 to 1901, declining to run for re-election in 1900 as he believed that presidents should only serve one term. In spite of this, in 1915, he revealed to the American public that he intended to prevent the expected Republican presidential nominee Theodore Roosevelt's plan to take the US into the Great War from coming to fruition by running against him and defeating him in the 1916 election. During his presidency, he was a vocal supporter of women's suffrage, which was granted throughout the United States in 1913.
- In the short story "The War of '07" by Jayge Carr in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Aaron Burr became the 3rd President by manipulating events in the 1800 election in which he defeated Thomas Jefferson. At the beginning of his presidency, Edmund Randolph was vice president, Edward Livingston was Secretary of State, Alexander Hamilton was Secretary of War, James Madison was Attorney General, Albert Gallatin was Secretary of Commerce and President Burr's son-in-law Joseph Alston was Secretary of the Treasury. By 1807, Hamilton had become vice president whereas General Henry "Light-Horse" Lee replaced him as Secretary of War. Although President Burr told the former that he was his chosen successor, Vice President Hamilton never acceded to the presidency and was eventually relieved of his position in 1812. Livingston became Burr's third vice president. President Burr kept promising to step down after one more term. Eventually, he became President for life, having been elected to a total of nine terms from 1800 to 1832. After serving as President for almost 36 years, he died on September 14, 1836 at the age of 80 and left the office as an inheritance to his descendants, thus turning the United States into a de facto monarchy or family dictatorship. He was succeeded by his 34-year-old grandson Aaron Burr Alston, who had been his fourth vice president. President Alston's own vice president was Paul Aaron Burr.
- In a parallel universe visited by Superboy and Lex Luthor in the Superboy episode "Roads Not Taken, Part One", George H. W. Bush was President in 1990.
- Bush becomes the 42nd President of the United States rather than the 41st in The White House Mess by Christopher Buckley, roundly defeating his predecessor Thomas Nelson Tucker in 1992.
- Bush serves two full terms from January 20, 1989 to January 20, 1997 in the science fiction novel Einstein's Bridge. In 1991, he is not content with liberating Kuwait but continues the Gulf War up to conquering Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein. Popular elation at eliminating Saddam Hussein serves to mask economic failures from the electorate, letting Bush win a second term in 1992 – while the problems of holding on to Iraq become evident only later. During his second term Bush approves completion of the Superconducting Super Collider in his home state of Texas – with the disastrous result that a few years later the operational SSC provides a foothold to a vicious race of insectoid extraterrestrials, who proceed to completely exterminate humanity and colonize Earth. Two survivors travel back in time and in order to prevent the disaster, change the outcome of the war and get Bill Clinton elected so as to ensure that the project would be cancelled.
- The Chopper Cops dime novel tetralogy by Rick Mackin also mentions Bush has served two terms, with one of his final acts being the creation of the US Tactical Police Force.
- Appeared as "Mr. President" in The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 episode "Reptiles in the Rose Garden". Here, he didn't have any speaking lines, only talking in the telephone the whole time. Neither he, "Mrs. President" or others working in the White House noticed that Bowser and the Koopalings lifted the White House into Dark Land in an attempt to take over America, but was stopped by Mario and Luigi.
- In the short story "Dukakis and the Aliens" by Robert Sheckley contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Bush lost the 1988 election to Michael Dukakis, the Governor of Massachusetts, who became the 41st President. Dukakis was eventually revealed to be an enemy alien, and "friendly" aliens along with the Men in Black have to adjust the timeline to ensure that Bush is elected instead.
- In an alternate timeline featured in Fantastic Four, Bush died of pneumonia while in office and was succeeded by Oliver North, who became the 42nd President.
- In the short story "Fellow Americans" by Eileen Gunn contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Barry Goldwater defeated the early favourite and incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964 and went on to be re-elected in 1968. During his term in office, President Goldwater ordered that nuclear weapons be deployed against North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Bush was elected in 1988 with Dan Quayle as his running mate. By 1990, he was growing increasingly unpopular due to his perceived poor handling of the economic recession. After a failed assassination attempt at the 1990 New York World's Fair, Robert F. Kennedy, the Governor of New York, informed his wife Ethel that he intended to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992 and run against Bush, in spite of the fact that he had previously been reluctant to actively campaign for the nomination. It was Vice President Quayle's ambition to send a manned mission to Mars, though Bush was rather more sceptical about its viability. Given that Goldwater served two terms whereas Richard Nixon retired from politics and was given his own late-night talk show Tricky Dick on NBC in 1970, it is unclear if Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan as the 41st President as he did in reality. None of the presidents who served between the end of Goldwater's second term in 1973 and Bush's inauguration in 1989 are identified in the text of the story.
- In a parallel universe featured in the Sliders Season Two episode "The Good, the Bad and the Wealthy", Bush was the President of the Republic of Texas in 1996. Shortly after the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, Texas, which had only been admitted to the Union in 1845 and was still hotly contested territory with the Mexican government, asserted its status as a sovereign nation by re-establishing the defunct Republic of Texas and began spreading both westwards and northwards. Without the troops to stop the Texians from doing so, the United States and the Mexico let this formidable country expand its size and power across the continent, eventually coming to encompass all of the territory from Texas to the former US state of California. It is not made clear what effect the rapid expansion of the Republic of Texas in the 1860s had on the Civil War and the prospects of victory for the Confederate States of America.
- In the short story "Mahogany Dreams" by Lyn Nichols contained in the anthology Alternate Tyrants, Ronald Reagan won the 1980 election with Bush as his running mate, defeating the Democratic incumbent Jimmy Carter in a landslide as he did in real life. After only 69 days in office, Reagan was assassinated in Washington, D.C. on March 30, 1981 by John Hinckley, Jr. as the culmination of an effort to impress Jodie Foster. After William Henry Harrison, who died on his 32nd day in office on April 4, 1841, he was the second shortest serving President in US history. He was succeeded by George H. W. Bush, who became the 41st President. However, Alexander Haig, the Secretary of State, was determined to preserve the presidency from continued denigration and plotted to remove his rivals and place himself in the Oval Office, including Bush.
- In the future history mockumentary film Death of a President written and directed by Gabriel Range, George W. Bush was assassinated by a sniper in Chicago, Illinois on October 19, 2007 while addressing an economic forum in the Sheraton Hotel, which was preceded by an anti-war rally at the same location. News outlets immediately began reporting on the assassination along with its political ramifications. After arresting and interrogating the anti-war activists Frank Molini and Samir Masri, the authorities turned their attention to an IT professional of Syrian origin named Jamal Abu Zikri. Vice President Dick Cheney succeeded Bush as the 44th President and used the possible al-Qaeda connection with the suspected assassin Zikri to push his own domestic security agenda. He called for the enactment of legislation PATRIOT Act III, attempting to increase the investigative powers of the FBI, the police and other government agencies over U.S. citizens and resident aliens as he contemplated going to war with Syria. Zikri was convicted of killing President Bush and sentenced to death, based on dubious forensic evidence, on April 10, 2008. Shortly afterwards, a new report surfaced, substantiated by interviews with Marianne Claybon, which indicated that the assassin was most likely her husband Al Claybon, a resident of Rock Island, Illinois and a veteran of the Gulf War whose son Daniel Claybon had been killed in the Iraq War. Claybon blamed Bush for his son's death and committed suicide almost immediately after Bush's assassination. In his suicide note addressed to his younger son Casey, himself an Iraq War veteran as well as an early suspect in the investigation into the assassination, which read: "Everything I stood for and raised you to stand for has turned bad. There's no honor in dying for an immoral cause. For lies. I love my country, but I love God, and the sons He gave me even more. I must do the right thing by you and by David. George Bush killed our David, and I cannot forgive him for that." Ten months after President Bush's assassination, Zikri remained on death row at the Stateville Correctional Center as government officials were deliberately delaying his legal appeal. Moreover, in his late father's Rock Island house, Casey Claybon found evidence of his father's planning of the shooting. The most incriminating piece of evidence was a copy of a top secret presidential itinerary outlining, to the minute, President Bush's whereabouts while in Chicago on October 19, 2007. The news report ended while the US government was continuing to investigate how the suspected assassin Al Claybon obtained that top secret document. The final closing titles of the film inform the viewer that President Cheney's USA PATRIOT Act III, was signed into permanent law in the United States, stating that "[i]t has granted investigators unprecedented powers of detention and surveillance, and further expanded the powers of the executive branch." After Abraham Lincoln in 1865, James A. Garfield in 1881, William McKinley in 1901 and John F. Kennedy in 1963, Bush was the fifth US President to be assassinated and the second, after Kennedy, to be survived by both of his parents, namely George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush.
- In the alternate history novel 43*: When Gore Beat Bush-A Political Fable by Jeff Greenfield, Al Gore defeated Bush in the 2000 election and became the 43rd President.
- Jeb Bush was president from 2001 to 2005 in From the Files of the Time Rangers, a mosaic novel by Richard Bowes. Presumably this is a fictionalized version of the actual son and brother of the historical presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. Briefly mentioned several times in the novel, Jeb Bush has gotten into office as a result of election fraud engineered by his family in Texas. He is defeated by the fictional "Once and Future President" Timothy Garde MacAuley.
- In the independent feature film Duck, he is said to be the president of the United States, but is never seen, only referenced by way of the policies that his administration and Republicans in tow have enacted.
- The series finale of Glee has him succeeding Barack Obama in 2016 and winning a second term in 2020, with Sue Sylvester as his running mate.
C
- In the alternate history novel The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith in which the United States became a libertarian state after a successful Whiskey Rebellion and the overthrowing and execution of George Washington by firing squad for treason in 1794, John C. Calhoun served as the 6th President of the North American Confederacy from 1831 to 1836.
- Al Capone is president of the United Socialist States of America in Kim Newman and Eugene Byrne's Back in the USSA, succeeding Eugene V. Debs. Capone serves as a parallel to Joseph Stalin. He is succeeded by Barry Goldwater, who is himself a parallel to Nikita Khrushchev.
- In a parallel universe designated Earth-81426 featured in the comic book What If? Volume 1 No. 26 (April 1981), Jimmy Carter ran for re-election against the Republican Party candidate Ronald Reagan and the New Populist Party candidate Captain America in 1980. While he praised Captain America for his long service to the United States, he noted that the superhero had no political experience. Captain America eventually won the election and was inaugurated as the 40th President on January 20, 1981.
- In the alternate history novel The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith in which the United States became a libertarian state known as the North American Confederacy in 1794, "Jim-Earl" Carter was a peanut farmer in Georgia in 1986.
- In the short story "Demarche to Iran" by Alexis A. Gilliland contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Jimmy Carter lost the 1976 election to Gerald Ford when Illinois shifted from Democrat to Republican after the second recount.
- In the short story "A Dream Can Make a Difference" by Beth Meacham contained in the anthology By Any Other Fame, Marilyn Monroe survived her drug overdose on August 5, 1962 and subsequently entered politics. She was elected Governor of California in 1970, defeating her Republican opponent and fellow former Hollywood star Ronald Reagan. She later became the first female President in 1980 with Jimmy Carter as her vice president. After only 69 days in office, President Monroe was assassinated in Washington, D.C. on March 30, 1981 by John Hinckley, Jr. as the culmination of an effort to impress Jodie Foster. Carter succeeded her as President.
- In a parallel universe featured in the Sliders episode "The Young and the Relentless", Carter was defeated by Howard Stern in 1980. Stern became the 40th President at the age of 27.
- In the alternate history novel series Southern Victory novel Settling Accounts: Drive to the East by Harry Turtledove, Jimmy Carter was a sailor in the Confederate States Navy during the Second Great War (1941–1944). In late 1942, while on leave in his home town of Plains, Georgia, Carter organised the defences of that town against a surprise raid led by the Negro guerrilla leader Spartacus. His efforts proved to be unsuccessful. He was killed by Major Jonathan Moss of the United States Army, who had rendered assistance to Spartacus and his followers, in front of his mother Lillian Gordy Carter. He was 18 years old at the time of his death.
- President in a sketch on Chappelle's Show In the "real" version of Deep Impact, Chappelle reveals that America has the cure for AIDS, has mastered cloning, and has made contact with aliens, who then take him to safety on their spaceship. Unfortunately, President Chappelle went missing during his third term and was subsequently replaced by Vice President Charlie Murphy.
- Becomes the 44th President after the assassination of George W. Bush in the 2007 British film by Gabriel Range Death of a President. As President, Cheney uses the possible al-Qaeda connection of the suspected assassin to push his own agenda, calling for "PATRIOT Act III", giving government agencies increased investigative powers on US citizens and others.
- Dick Cheney becomes the 44th President after the impeachment of George W. Bush in the final episode of the short-lived comedy series That's My Bush!.
- In the alternate history novel The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith in which the United States became a Libertarian state after a successful Whiskey Rebellion and the overthrowing and execution of George Washington by firing squad for treason in 1794, Frank Chodorov served as the 20th President of the North American Confederacy from 1933 to 1940.
- President in For the Sake of England by Richard K. Burns. Churchill was born in Brooklyn, New York after his pregnant mother Jennie Jerome quarreled with and separated from her English husband Lord Randolph Churchill, shortly after their marriage in 1874. Was brought up by his mother and her second husband, an American millionaire, but spent some holidays with his father in England and took pride in being descended from an aristocratic family. Had a checkered journalistic, military and political career. As a Congressman, he shifted between the Democrats and Republicans. He was elected President as a Democrat in 1936 with Franklin D. Roosevelt as his running mate, defeating the incumbent Herbert Hoover. In 1941, he intervenes World War II after Nazi Germany treacherously attacks the United Kingdom despite a peace treaty signed by Lord Halifax after the Battle of France. President Churchill faces impeachment proceedings for having started a war without Congressional approval, but survives and carries the war through to victory. Having signed a non-aggression treaty with Japan in order to concentrate US forces on the European front, Churchill sees American forces enter Berlin in September 1944 and capture Adolf Hitler, and two months later wins a third term by a landslide.
- In the alternative history novel 1824: The Arkansas War by Eric Flint, Henry Clay wins the heavily contested 1824 presidential election when it is thrown into the House of Representatives against Andrew Jackson. Clay forms a political alliance with William Crawford and John C. Calhoun while John Quincy Adams supports Andrew Jackson. Clay had engineered a conflict against the independent Arkansas Confederacy (a nation of voluntarily transplanted southern Indian nations and free negroes) by secretly and illegally arming a freebooter expedition led by Robert Crittenden that was intended to (and did) fail miserably.
- In the short story "Patriot's Dream" by Tappan Wright King contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Samuel J. Tilden defeated Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876 and went on to be re-elected in 1880. He eventually founded the Liberal Party. Tilden's vice president was General Winfield Scott Hancock, who went on to be elected President himself in 1884 and 1888 with Cleveland as his vice president. Cleveland received the Liberal Party's presidential nomination in 1892, which he was widely expected to win. His running mate was Susan B. Anthony.
- In the short story "Love Our Lockwood" by Janet Kagan in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Grover Cleveland lost the 1888 election to Belva Ann Lockwood, who became the 23rd President as well as the first woman to hold the office. In 1892, Cleveland defeated Lockwood and became the 24th President. He had previously been the 22nd President from 1885 to 1889.
- In an alternate timeline featured in Branch Point by Mona Clee, Bill Clinton lost his bid for re-election in 1996 to George Wallace, who became the 43rd President. The novel was published in January 1996, indicating that the author may have believed that Clinton would lose that year's presidential election.
- In the alternate history short story "Hillary Orbits Venus" by Pamela Sargent, Bill Clinton was elected President in 1992 and 1996. His two immediate predecessors were John Glenn and Bob Dole. His vice president was Newt Gingrich, who had a reputation as a hatchet man for the President. Clinton was married to the former actress Mary Steenburgen Clinton, who had given up for her burgeoning acting career to serve as her husband's adviser and campaign manager. In 1979, she starred in the science fiction film Time After Time, in which Malcolm McDowell played H. G. Wells. At the time, it was rumoured that Mrs Clinton and McDowell had had an affair.
- Is the President of the United States by 2049 on Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century. She is never actually seen on screen. Chelsea Clinton would be 69 years old by the year this movie takes place.
- Is the President of the United States in 2021 in the comic book series Liberality For All.
- In an underground chain of comic emails called "2043 – Headlines of the Future", Chelsea Clinton is president and bans all smoking, at the same time Fidel Castro dies at age 112, meaning Americans would otherwise have been able to legally buy Cuban cigars. Also in the list of jokes, "George Z. Bush" (intended to be a futuristic descendant of George W. Bush and George H. W. Bush) says he will run in the 2044 election.
- In a parallel universe featured in the Sliders Season One episode "The Weaker Sex" in which women held the positions of power and influence and men were treated like second class citizens, Hillary Clinton (played by Teresa Barnwell) was the incumbent President in 1995. Her husband, Bill Clinton, was the First Gentleman.
- Described in John Birmingham's Axis of Time novels as being an "uncompromising" president; served two terms and was martyred by a suicide bomber. A George W. Bush-class aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Hillary Clinton (aka "The Big Hill", ship's motto "It Takes A Carrier"), was named for her.
- Portrayed as 46th president in the British comic 2000 AD (in the 1995 story Maniac 6). Ross Perot is her Secretary of State and Colin Powell her Chief of Staff.
- In the parallel universe depicted in the comic book newuniversal by Warren Ellis, Hillary Clinton was President in 2006. In this universe, the September 11, 2001 attacks never took place.
- In The Trial of Tony Blair, she was elected as the 44th President in 2008, succeeding George W. Bush.
- In The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod, she was elected as the 44th President in 2008, succeeding Al Gore. Gore had defeated George W. Bush in the 2000 election and was re-elected in 2004. The point explicitly made by the writer is that – with the September 11, 2001 attacks still happening with a Democrat in the White House – Gore and his successor Clinton would have undertaken an aggressive "War on Terrorism" similar to that undertaken by George W. Bush in actual history, leading to an unstable, oppressive situation in the later part of the 21st century when the plot is set.
- In the alternate history novel 11/22/63 by Stephen King, Hillary Clinton was President in 2011.
- George Clooney is a former president in the episode "The Suite Smell of Excess" of The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. Zack and Cody Martin traveled to an alternate universe where everything had changed from their original world and where President Clooney was depicted on the quarter.
- In the short story "Fighting Bob" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Calvin Coolidge lost the 1924 election to the Progressive Party candidate Robert M. La Follette, Sr.. La Follette entered office as the 31st President on March 4, 1925. However, his term in office proved to be short-lived as he died on June 18, 1925 (as he did in real life). Burton K. Wheeler succeeded him as the 32nd President.
- In the alternate history novel series Southern Victory novel American Empire: The Center Cannot Hold, Calvin Coolidge was a Conservative Democratic politician in the early 20th century. He served as the Governor of Massachusetts in the 1920s and was elected to the presidency in 1932. He held the distinction of being the only man elected President of the United States to have never been inaugurated. A veteran of the Great War (1914–1917), Coolidge rose to prominence during his tenure as Governor of Massachusetts. In 1928, he was the Democratic Party's nominee for president. However, as United States had been immensely prosperous under the administration of Socialist President Upton Sinclair, Coolidge was readily portrayed another regressive Democrat. Despite Coolidge's promises to keep the Confederate States of America in check, his lack of accomplishment outside of Massachusetts worked against him. Although he carried all of the New England states (including his home and birth states of Massachusetts and Vermont), Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, and Houston (which split off from Texas after the Great War), he was defeated by the incumbent Vice President, Socialist Hosea Blackford by a narrow margin. When Coolidge called Blackford to concede, however, he expressed his belief that the bull market would not last, and that Blackford would face a difficult presidency when it finally crashed. History proved Coolidge correct. The stock market crash came a year into Blackford's term. Blackford struggled unsuccessfully with the resulting depression, but the American people's faith in him and his party quickly eroded. Further sinking Blackford's presidency was the Pacific War with Japan, which broke out in 1932, just before elections. Against this backdrop, the Democrats nominated Coolidge as their candidate for a second time in 1932. Coolidge's platform of discontinuing Blackford's costly and ineffective economic programs and a vigorous prosecution of the Pacific War handily won him and his running mate Herbert Hoover the election. Unfortunately, Coolidge did not live to take office. President-elect Coolidge was in Washington, D.C. when he suffered a heart attack while shaving and died on January 5, 1933 (the same date as he died in real history). Coolidge's term was served by Hoover, who became the 31st President.
- In the short story "A Fireside Chat" by Jack Nimersheim in the anthology Alternate Presidents, James M. Cox was elected President in 1920 after his Republican opponent Warren G. Harding died of a stroke. Before taking office, however, President-elect Cox was assassinated by an anti-League of Nations activist. Consequently, Vice President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated as the 29th President on March 4, 1921.
- Davy Crockett is elected as the 7th President in 1828, defeating Andrew Jackson (who's image was tarnished by a land-dealing scandal), in the short story "Chickasaw Slave" by Judith Moffett in the anthology Alternate Presidents.
- Mario Cuomo is portrayed in the British comic 2000 AD (in the 1993 story Maniac 5) as vice president to President Al Gore, and succeeds to the presidency when Gore is killed by aliens during the Fourth World War. Cuomo is pressured by his advisers into taking drastic measures to win the war, against his better judgment, and shoots himself in remorse. His successor is seen but not named.
- Mario Cuomo is also President in the Stoney Compton novel Russian Amerika, although the US in that book is limited to New England, the Mid Atlantic States, and the Upper Midwest and the capital is Columbus, Ohio.
- In the alternate history short story "How the South Preserved the Union" by Ralph Roberts in the anthology Alternate Presidents, George Custer was elected President in or prior to 1888. He is named as the victor at the Battle of the Little Big Horn (June 25–26, 1876).
D
- In the alternate history novel The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith in which the United States became a libertarian state in 1794 after a successful Whiskey Rebellion and the overthowing and execution of George Washington by firing squad for treason, Jefferson Davis served as the 10th President of the North American Confederacy from 1848 to 1852. He was succeeded by Gifford Swansea, who served as the 11th president from 1852 to 1856.
- In the alternate history anthology Back in the USSA by Kim Newman and Eugene Byrne, Eugene Debs and his followers in the Socialist Party of America overthrew the oppressive regime of President Charles Foster Kane with the storming of the White House on July 4, 1917, serving as a parallel of Vladimir Lenin. He became the first President of the United Socialist States of America (USSA). After his death in 1926, he was succeeded by Al Capone, a parallel to Joseph Stalin.
- In the Southern Victory alternate history series by Harry Turtledove, Eugene Debs was a United States Senator from Indiana and the first member of the Socialist Party elected to the Senate. He joined the Socialists shortly after the Second Mexican War (1881–1882). He was first elected in the Senate in the 1890s and remained in office until after the Great War (1914–1917). He was the Socialist presidential candidate in 1908, 1912 and 1916. On the two latter occasions, he was defeated handily by Democrat Theodore Roosevelt. Usually a radical, and an opponent of the US nationalistic ideology of Remembrance, Debs was constrained to seriously compromise his principles and vote to support President Roosevelt's wartime budget when the Great War began in 1914. In 1916, Debs ran on an anti-war platform, and his record for supporting the war budget embarrassed him and other Socialists who ran on his ticket. His image as a principled and uncompromising political leader was irrevocably damaged. Though he gained a substantial number of votes, the presidency eluded him. At the 1920 National Convention in Toledo, Ohio, conflict over the presidential nomination. Debs, realising that he stood no chance against Roosevelt, who was running for an unprecedented third term, agreed to step aside, allowing Indiana's votes to go to the much younger Upton Sinclair, who eventually secured the nomination. Sinclair won the election and was inaugurated as the 29th President of the United States on March 4, 1921. He became the first Socialist to hold the office as well as the first North American president to be born after the War of Secession (1861–1862). President Sinclair, who was re-elected in 1924, oversaw the greatest level of economic growth in US history.
- In "No Other Choice" by Barbara Delaplace contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Thomas Dewey defeats a seriously ill Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 to become the 33rd President, and eventually decided to drop the atomic bomb on Tokyo rather than Hiroshima, leading to the deaths of eight million Japanese civilians. His vice president was John W. Bricker, though Dewey came to believe that Bricker's temperament was better suited to peacetime than wartime.
- "The More Things Change..." by Glen E. Cox, contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, tells the story of the 1948 election in reverse, with underdog Dewey eventually defeating the early overwhelming favourite, the incumbent Harry S. Truman, by playing to anti-communist fears. He therefore becomes the 34th President with Earl Warren as his vice president. The story contains a reference to the famously inaccurate banner headline "Dewey Defeats Truman". Given that it was regarded as a foregone conclusion that Dewey would lose the election, the front page headline of the Chicago Tribune on November 3, 1948 erroneously reads "Truman Defeats Dewey". The front cover of the anthology depicts a grinning Dewey proudly holding up the relevant edition of the Chicago Tribune in the same manner as Truman did in real life.
- In The Trinity Paradox by Kevin J. Anderson and Doug Beason, the well-intentioned interference of a time traveller caused the boosting of Nazi Germany's nuclear program, and New York City was devastated in June 1944 by a radioactive dust missile fired from a German U-boat – with the result that voters lost confidence in Roosevelt and Thomas Dewey won the 1944 election with John W. Bricker as his vice president. In his term, President Dewey instituted the policy of regularly using nuclear arms in whatever war the US was involved in, first against Germany and later against the Soviet Union and North Korea.
- In Harry Turtledove's Settling Accounts: In at the Death, the final novel in the Southern Victory alternate history series, Thomas Dewey was a Democrat who was elected as the 34th President in 1944 with Harry S. Truman as his vice president. Dewey rose to fame first as a prosecutor and subsequently served as the Governor of New York during the Second Great War. An able and very popular politician, Dewey became the obvious choice to challenge the incumbent Socialist President Charles W. La Follette. Despite the fact that La Follette had recently led the country to victory over the Confederate States of America and its allies in the Second Great War (1941–1944), Dewey successfully ran on a platform that the Socialists had allowed the Confederacy to regain its strength under Jake Featherston. At his inauguration on February 1, 1945, President Dewey pledged to continue US occupation of the CS with the intention of re-integrating the southern states back into the Union, even though over 82 years had passed since the Confederate States had won its independence in the War of Secession (1861–1862) with the support of the United Kingdom and France. He pledged to continue La Follette's policy of racial equality in the armed services. Furthermore, he proposed a continued partnership with the United States' traditional ally, the German Empire, to police the world and prevent the spread of superbomb technology to their former enemies, the Russian Empire and the Empire of Japan. Given that it was widely believed that Dewey would lose the election, the front page headline of the November 8, 1944 edition of the Chicago Tribune inaccurately read "La Follette Defeats Dewey". Vice President-elect Truman was photographed holding up a copy of the paper by the media. Dewey was elected at the age of 42, tying the first Socialist president Upton Sinclair (who was elected to the first of two terms in 1920, defeating the Democratic incumbent Theodore Roosevelt) as the youngest President in US history. He also held the distinction of being the first President born in the 20th century whereas Sinclair was the first born after the War of Secession.
- In Franz Ferdinand Lives! A World Without World War I (2014) by Richard Ned Lebow in which neither World War I nor World War II took place, Thomas Dewey was elected in 1944 and served two terms. He was preceded by Franklin D. Roosevelt.
- In the alternate history video game Turning Point: Fall of Liberty, Thomas E. Dewey served as the 34th President of the United States after he defeated Harry S. Truman in the 1948 election. After Nazi Germany invaded the East Coast of the United States in 1953, he and his vice president Haley resign and let Speaker of the House James Edward Stevenson to become the president of a new Pro-Nazi puppet government.
- In the alternate history short story "Hillary Orbits Venus" by Pamela Sargent, Bob Dole was elected President in 1984 and 1988. He was preceded by John Glenn and succeeded by Bill Clinton. By 1998, he and Glenn were the only living former Presidents.
- In the alternate history novel The Sky People, Bob Dole was President at the time of the first American settlement on Venus in 1982.
- In the short story "How the South Preserved the Union" by Ralph Roberts included in the anthology Alternate Presidents, David Rice Atchison, the President pro tempore of the United States Senate and a prominent pro-slavery activist, became the 13th President following the deaths of his predecessor Zachary Taylor and Vice President Millard Fillmore in a carriage accident. Several months after President Atchison's accession, the American Civil War broke out on April 17, 1849 with the secession of Massachusetts from the Union and the Second Battle of Lexington and Concord, from which the rebelling abolitionists, who styled themselves as the New Minutemen, emerged victorious. New Hampshire and Vermont seceded shortly thereafter and were soon followed by the rest of New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The seceding states banded together to form the New England Confederacy with Daniel Webster as its first and only President and the revolutionary abolitionist John Brown as the commander of its army. The war came to an end in 1855, two years after President Atchison had issued a proclamation promising that any slave who fought in the United States Army would be granted his freedom following the end of the war and that any factory slave who worked satisfactorily would be granted his or her freedom after the war and would be paid for that work from then onwards. Stephen Douglas eventually succeeded Atchison as the 14th President and introduced the Civil Rights Act 1861 which brought an end to slavery in the United States in its entirety. The 1861 Act also declared all men, irrespective of their colour, equal and granted all African American (which by then had replaced "Negro" as the preferred term for black people) men the right to vote. However, certain veterans had already enjoyed voting rights since the end of war. Several years later, the right to vote was granted to all women.
- In the short story "Lincoln's Charge" by Bill Fawcett contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Stephen Douglas was elected as the 16th President in 1860 and managed to live longer than he did in reality. His vice president was Herschel Vespasian Johnson. In the hope of avoiding warfare, Douglas attempted to reach a compromise with the Southern representatives in the Congress. The Manumission Act of 1862 was intended to preserve the Union by freeing the slaves over a period of ten years, giving everyone time to adjust. While Douglas heralded the law as another great compromise analogous to the Compromise of 1850, the Southern representatives formed the Confederate States of America and began arming for war. After the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1862, President Douglas was fearful of further provoking the South and did not introduce conscription as the Confederacy. Consequently, the professional though much smaller Union Army was overwhelmed and nearly destroyed by the Confederate States Army at Manassas Creek in Virginia in 1862. It took the United States over a year to recover from this disaster, creating a period of false peace. Although everyone in the North initially welcomed it, the false peace gave both sides time to build their armies as well as providing an opportunity for the United Kingdom to decide to support the Confederacy with the full backing of the British Empire's diplomacy and trade. Douglas continued to negotiate with the Confederacy in an attempt to reach a compromise, failing to understand that every day lost meant another victory for the South. The failed Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln accepted a commission as the commanding general of the Illinois Militia in the Union Army. General Lincoln's own commanding officer was Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant. Lincoln believed that he would have been able to prevent the war if he had been elected or, failing that, would have shown the kind of decisive leadership of which Douglas was seemingly incapable, built a real army and crushed the Confederacy before they were able to build a large army of their own. Shortly after leading his troops into battle for the first time in 1863, General Lincoln was shot and killed by a Confederate sniper while still on horseback. Although the story ends with Lincoln's death, it is heavily implied that the Confederacy will eventually win the war with the support of the British and establish an independent nation.
- In the alternate history novel The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith in which the United States became a libertarian state in 1794 after a successful Whiskey Rebellion and the execution of George Washington by firing squad for treason, Frederick Douglass served as the 16th President of the North American Confederacy from 1888 to 1892.
- In the short story "Dukakis and the Aliens" by Robert Sheckley in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Michael Dukakis won the 1988 election and became the 41st President, defeating Vice President George H. W. Bush. His own vice president was Lloyd Bentsen. President Dukakis was eventually revealed to be an enemy alien. "Friendly" aliens along with the Men in Black have to adjust the timeline to ensure that Bush was elected the 41st president, instead.
E
- Thomas Edison is elected as the 27th President in 1908 in the novel And Having Writ... by Donald R. Bensen. In this book, the aliens whose ship crashed in the Tunguska event on June 30, 1908 instead land safely in San Francisco. They create an effective hearing aid for Edison and cure the infirmities of Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsarevich Alexei, the son of Tsar Nicholas II. Edison is nominated by the Republicans over William Howard Taft and elected by a technology-enthused public. After pursuing the aliens and their companion, H. G. Wells, across Europe, he briefly tries to imprison them in order to obtain more of their secrets, but later relents. President Edison chooses not to run in 1912.
- David Eisenhower, the grandson of the real life president Dwight D. Eisenhower, was President in the 1975 film Tunnelvision, and a former President in 1997 in Americathon. Both were Neal Israel directed motion pictures.
- In Poul Anderson's The Psychotechnic League, Dwight Eisenhower died from surgical complications in June 1956 and was succeeded by his 43-year-old vice president Richard Nixon, who became the 35th President. Only a few years removed from his active participation in the House Un-American Activities Committee and with his anti-Communist zeal untampered by the pragmatism which he might have gained in later life, President Nixon embarked on a wild, provocative and confrontational policy with respect to the Soviet Union. By 1958, this resulted in a worldwide nuclear war, in which Nixon himself was killed along with hundreds of millions of other people.
- In one of the alternate timelines featured in Michael P. Kube-McDowell's novel Alternities, Dwight Eisenhower was killed in a plane crash in 1951. Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio was elected as the 34th President in 1952. President Taft pursued a policy of isolationism which allowed the Soviet Union to emerge as the dominant superpower. Taft subsequently died in office.
- In another of the alternate timelines featured in Michael P. Kube-McDowell's novel Alternities, Dwight Eisenhower lost his bid for re-election in 1956 to Adlai Stevenson. President Stevenson was re-elected in 1960, though he would later describe his second term as a curse.
- In the alternate history short story "We Could Do Worse" by Gregory Benford, Senator Robert A. Taft secured the Republican presidential nomination at the 1952 Republican National Convention, narrowly beating Dwight Eisenhower, with the support of the California delegation which was delivered by Senator Richard Nixon. In the election the following November, Taft defeated Adlai Stevenson and was inaugurated as the 34th President on January 20, 1953. However, after only six months in office, President Taft died of a heart attack on July 31, 1953, as occurred in reality. He was succeeded by his vice president Joseph McCarthy, who went on to create a brutal dictatorship in the United States.
- In the alternate history short story "The Impeachment of Adlai Stevenson" by David Gerrold included in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Dwight Eisenhower was defeated by his Democratic opponent Adlai Stevenson, the Governor of Illinois, in 1952 after he made the mistake of accepting Joseph McCarthy as his running mate instead of Richard Nixon. He successfully ran for re-election in 1956, once again defeating General Eisenhower. However, Stevenson proved to be an extremely unpopular president. As the title of the story implies, Stevenson, the 34th President, was impeached during his second term in August 1958 and resigned, leaving his untested 41-year-old Vice-President, John F. Kennedy, as his successor. Kennedy was considered something of a laughing stock, having recently married the Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe. This lead satirists to dub the marriage "the new Monroe Doctrine." Although the story ends immediately after Stevenson has decided to resign, it is heavily implied that Nixon, already the front runner for the next Republican nomination, will defeat Kennedy in the 1960 election. This is due to the public's antipathy towards the Democrats and the fact that Kennedy is a much derided figure due to his marriage to Monroe.
- In the HBO television adaptation of the alternate history novel Fatherland by Robert Harris, General Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe, oversaw the landing operations of the Allied invasion of Normandy, the first phase of Operation Overlord during World War II, on June 6, 1944, which were successfully defeated and repelled by Nazi Germany's forces. Consequently, the United States turned its back on the Western Front and focussed its attention on defeating the Empire of Japan, allowing Germany the necessary time to regroup, annex Western and Southern Europe and therefore win the war. After the failure of the D-Day invasion, Eisenhower returned to the United States and retired in disgrace.
- In a parallel universe featured in the Sliders Season Five episode "The Return of Maggie Beckett", the German forces broke through the Allied lines at the Battle of the Bulge in 1944, which caused World War II to drag on until 1947. General Eisenhower was relieved as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe and returned to the United States in disgrace. Consequently, Adlai Stevenson became President. The Stevenson administration made the Roswell UFO Incident in July 1947 public knowledge and signed the Reticulan-American Free Trade Agreement (RAFTA), giving the US access to advanced Reticulan technology. This led to a manned mission to Mars in the 1990s.
- In a parallel universe featured in the Sliders Season One episode "Luck of the Draw", Joycelyn Elders was President in 1995. In this universe as in real life, the 18th-century English economist Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus published his highly influential An Essay on the Principle of Population which warned that humanity would be condemned to misery and poverty because the rate of population growth would increase faster than the rate of food supply. Taking Malthus' theory seriously, the inhabitants of this version of Earth managed to keep the world population down to 500,000,000. San Francisco had a population of less than 100,000 people, giving it the feel of a small city rather than a major metropolis. The population was maintained at this low level through heavy emphasis on birth control (provided in the form of soft drinks) and the Lottery system. The Lottery itself worked like an ATM except that people asked for money from it. The more money a person asked for, the higher the chance that he/she would be chosen to participate in a euthanasia program which rewarded the beneficiaries of those who chose to "make way". Pro-life movements swept across the United States to fight the Lottery. While the manner of death was humane, protesters believed that population could be controlled through other means. President Elders did not agree with this assessment and the Lottery system continued unabated as of 1996.
F
- In the short story "Bloody Bunnies" by Bradley Denton contained in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, the Denton of an alternate timeline finds himself trapped in our universe. It is implied that he became a kind of walk-in spirit, his consciousness entering the body of his counterpart after his original body died in a car accident. Denton refers to former President Geraldine Ferraro several times. One of her many accomplishments was "the Universal Health Care and Child-Proof Trigger Lock Initiative."
- In the short story "How the South Preserved the Union" by Ralph Roberts contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, General Zachary Taylor was elected as the 12th President in 1848 with Millard Fillmore as his running mate, as happened in real life. Shortly after taking office, however, both he and President Taylor were killed in a carriage accident. Taylor was succeeded by David Rice Atchison, the President pro tempore of the United States Senate and a prominent pro-slavery activist, who became the 13th President. Several months after President Atchison's accession, the American Civil War broke out on April 17, 1849 with the secession of Massachusetts from the Union and the Second Battle of Lexington and Concord, from which the rebelling abolitionists, who styled themselves as the New Minutemen, emerged victorious. New Hampshire and Vermont seceded shortly thereafter and were soon followed by the rest of New England, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The seceding states banded together to form the New England Confederacy with Daniel Webster as its first and only President and the revolutionary abolitionist John Brown as the commander of its army. The war came to an end in 1855, two years after President Atchison had issued a proclamation promising that any slave who fought in the United States Army would be granted his freedom following the end of the war and that any factory slave who worked satisfactorily would be granted his or her freedom after the war and would be paid for that work from then onwards.
- In the short story "Now Falls the Cold, Cold Night" by Jack L. Chalker contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Millard Fillmore was elected the Know Nothing Party candidate in 1856, defeating the Democratic candidate James Buchanan and the Republican candidate John C. Frémont. He therefore became the 15th President, having previously served as the 13th President from 1850 to 1853 as a member of the Whig Party. This resulted in ethnic tensions in New England over the fugitive slave laws. His vice president was Andrew Jackson Donelson, the namesake nephew of former President Andrew Jackson.
- In one of the timelines featured in the novel Replay by Ken Grimwood, Gerald Ford was defeated by Ronald Reagan, the former Governor of California, in the Republican Party's presidential primaries in 1976. Reagan went on to defeat his Democratic opponent Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election, taking office as the 39th President on January 20, 1977. In November 1979, President Reagan went to war with Iran over the hostage crisis.
- In the alternate history short story "Demarche to Iran" by Alexis A. Gilliland contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Gerald Ford defeated his Democratic opponent Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election, thereby being elected to the nation's highest office in his own right, when Illinois shifted from Democrat to Republican after the second recount. His vice president was Bob Dole. As he had served more than two years of his predecessor Richard Nixon's second term, he was not eligible to run for re-election in 1980. On November 4, 1979, militant Iranian students who supported the Iranian Revolution took 63 American citizens hostage after seizing control of the US Embassy in Tehran. Although his Chief of Staff Dick Cheney suggested seizing Iranian bank accounts, Ford was convinced by his masseur to present the Iranian ambassador, Doctor Mehdi Haeri Yazdi, with a démarche threatening to sever diplomatic relations with Iran if the hostages were not returned within three days. He did so over the initial objections of two key members of his cabinet. Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State, was concerned that war with Iran would result if the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ignored the démarche and the negative impact that this would have on Soviet Union–United States relations. He also reminded the President that, in spite of the Ayatollah, Iran was a friendly nation as well as the United States’ only bulwark against the USSR in the Persian Gulf. Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, believed that a war would cost the Republicans the 1980 election. As Kissinger predicted, the Ayatollah initially ignored the démarche. As he explained to President Abolhassan Banisadr and General Mohammed Suliman, he was willing to accept the possibility of war with the United States as he believed that the Americans would eventually lose heart or a new president would be elected. During a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House, the President failed to remember that Iran was not a naval power and instead referred to nuclear weapons. This remark was interpreted by the American media, the Iranian authorities and the rest of the world as Ford voicing his intention to use such weapons on Iran if the hostages were not returned by the expiration of the démarche. Within hours, the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China issued strong diplomatic protests over the comment. It also resulted in one million people protesting at a demonstration in London, one and a half people protesting at a similar demonstration in Tokyo and the US embassies in Pakistan, Syria and Iran being burned. The Ayatollah did not take this threat seriously and instructed the newly appointed Minister of the Interior Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to appear on live television in front of the US Embassy and tell the Iranian people that they would stand resolute in the face of American provocation. However, Rafsanjani was attacked by protestors fearful of a nuclear strike and was strangled with his own turban. His death was televised and shown all over the world. This incident convinced the Ayatollah Khomeini to back down and order the students to release the hostages. Although all 63 hostages were released unharmed only four days after they were captured, Ford was severely criticised for threatening to use nuclear weapon on a non-nuclear, friendly nation, a costly mistake which permanently alienated Iran from the United States’ cause. It was regarded as being as serious a failure for American diplomacy as the Vietnam War had been for American arms. The incident came to be seen as "the most serious of many blunders committed by President Ford during his term of office."
- Portrayed as the president in an episode in VIP
- Referred to as a former president in the film Scary Movie 3 when current president Baxter Harris "[wonders] what President Harrison Ford would have done". The audience is led to believe he's referring to actual president Gerald Ford, but the portrait shows Harrison Ford's image, possibly a reference to the 1997 film Air Force One.
- Mentioned as a former president in the 1989 video game Mean Streets. In real life, Michael J. Fox is ineligible for the presidency, as he was born in Canada.
- President in Why Not Me?, a satirical novel by Al Franken himself. He was elected as the 43rd President in 2000, running as a dark horse candidate on a platform of eliminating ATM fees. He is eventually given the Democratic nomination over the incumbent vice president and early favourite Al Gore due in a rise in support when the Y2K bug solely effects ATMs. He was the first Jewish President and won in a landslide. Franken's running mate was Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, making the Franken-Lieberman ticket the first all-Jewish presidential ticket since Reconstruction. President Franken suffered from severe depression and mood swings. For instance, he attacked Nelson Mandela and appointed Sandy Koufax as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. President Franken resigned after 144 days in office on June 10, 2001. In his resignation speech, he said: "It is my fondest wish that, in the fullness of time, the American people will look back on the Franken presidency as something of a mixed bag and not as a complete disaster." Lieberman succeeded him as the 44th President, going on to serve a total of eighteen years in office. In stark contrast to Franken, President Lieberman was widely considered to be one of the greatest Presidents in US history. In real life, Franken is the current junior United States Senator from Minnesota, having defeated the Republican incumbent Senator Norm Coleman in 2008. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party. Furthermore, the novel, which was written in 1999, correctly predicted that Lieberman would be the Democratic vice presidential nominee in the 2000 election, though with Gore rather than Franken as the presidential candidate.
- Listed as a former President in the Doctor Who audio play Seasons of Fear. It is unclear whether this refers to him being President in the original Doctor Who timeline or one of the fictional ones implied by the time corruption depicted in this story.
- In the short story "The Father of His Country" by Jody Lynn Nye contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Benjamin Franklin was elected as the first President of the United States by the 1st United States Congress on April 6, 1789, defeating his sole opponent George Washington and achieving a clear mandate to govern in the process. In spite of the fact that Franklin was 83 years old and was rumoured to have fathered numerous illegitimate children while serving as ambassador to France from 1778 to 1785, he ultimately won the election in part due to reservations voiced by prominent members of Congress such as John Hancock and Charles Thomson regarding Washington. They were concerned that it would set a bad precedent for the first President to be a general. Furthermore, Franklin's supporters stressed that he was well liked and respected by foreign heads of state friendly to the United States, had been prominent in matters of diplomacy and government at home and abroad and had already proven that he had the best interests of the nation at heart. When he was offered the presidency after his election, Franklin emulated the fictionalised Julius Caesar's stance in the Shakespearean tragedy of the same name who denied the crown of Rome three times in Act 1, Scene 2 of the play. Consequently, he only accepted the position on being offered it for the fourth time. He was inaugurated in Federal Hall in New York City on April 30, 1789. His vice president was John Adams who had supported Washington in Congress, as had his second cousin Samuel Adams. During his tenure in office, President Franklin attempted to create a more democratic society and managed to live longer than he did in real life. Shortly after taking office, he began to insist on organizing the government as if it were a business. In a letter to his wife Abigail Adams, Vice President Adams was scornful of the idea that a government "could run with the same despatch and efficiency as a printshop." However, the notion proved to be extremely popular with the citizenry as President Franklin was often surrounded by his supporters, friends and former subscribers while walking through the streets of Philadelphia. Adams believed that his role as President of the Senate would mean that the vice presidency would soon eclipse the presidency in importance and prestige. In September 1789, President Franklin made a speech decrying ambition and avarice as the two principal sins besetting the United States. The speech, which was published in the Philadelphia Gazette, was popular with Quakers, small merchants and farmers but less so with the landowners and aristocrats who made up the Congress. Congress also moved to insist that Franklin limit his writings to only the most serious of topics so as not to adversely affect the dignity of his office. Although he outwardly complied, Adams was aware that he continued to write his satires and hoaxes, which he published under various pseudonyms. One of these was a playful satire regarding Great Britain's position on trade with the United States which was attributed to a "Mr. Newly." On being confronted by Adams about the piece, Franklin did not admit or deny writing it but "his eyes twinkled with mischief." Losing patience with the elderly president, Adams told him that he must accede to Congress' request to cease from publishing such ephemera as the United States had gained the upper hand in its trade negotiations with Britain and did not want it to be ruined by a trivial matter. To Adams' annoyance, the Newly piece had become very popular with the general public and encouraged them to support the trade negotiations. While this proved advantageous to the government in the short-term, Adams confided in his wife that could also serve to set a precedent which he and his colleagues sought to avoid, namely allowing the public control of their government. In defiance of Congress' numerous requests, Franklin continued to publish articles using pseudonyms. In one commentary published in March 1791, the President stated that a trade agreement with Britain should be reached with great alacrity. Furthermore, Franklin attempted to manipulate the public through these articles by voicing the opinion that proposed bills should be presented to the public before being presented to Congress. This led to Adams being accosted by a tavern owner who objected to the new duty on rum. Adams was concerned that, if this trend continued, he and his fellow politicians would be forced to the indignity of consulting their constituents before voting in Congress, which he regarded as an absurd notion which would delay the workings of government. In a letter dated April 29, 1792, Adams confided in his wife Abigail that he regarded Franklin as "a meddlesome old man" and was privately relieved that his advanced age meant that he was coming to the end of his life. When that day came, Adams stated that he and his colleagues would be able to get on with the business of government unhindered.
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- In the alternate history novel The Probability Broach as part of the North American Confederacy Series by L. Neil Smith, Albert Gallatin intrcedes in the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 to the benefit farmers, rather than the fledgling US Government like he does in real history. The rebellion soon escalates into a Second American Revolution. Soon, an army of farmers march into the capital Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and overthrows and executes George Washington for treason. After the war, Gallatin becomes the 2nd president and serves from 1794 to 1812. He declares the Constitution null and void, reforms the system of government with a new Articles of Confederation, which severely limiting its powers and grants a much greater emphasis on individual freedom. In 1836, Gallatin steps out of retirement and defeats John C. Calhoun in the 1836 election, becoming the 7th President and serving from 1836 to 1840. By 1986, his likeness was minted on .999 fine gold coins. Gallatin's legacy would eventually led to the formation of the North American Confederacy in the 1890s.
- In the alternate history novel series Southern Victory book How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove, James Garfield was a Republican senator who represented Ohio in 1882. He had been an officer in the Union Army during the War of Secession (1861–1862) and had served on a number of courts-martial. He rose to prominence by purging the Army of defeatists after the war. In 1882, Garfield was one of several prominent Republican leaders to attend a convention called by former President Abraham Lincoln in Chicago. He resisted Lincoln's proposal to replace hostility toward the Confederate States of America with workers' rights as the central plank of the party's platform, going so far as to suggest that following Lincoln's plan would cause the Republican party to split into three factions. The meeting ended with Garfield and every other delegate walking out, leaving Lincoln alone.
- In the short story I Shall Have a Fight to Glory by Michael P. Kube-McDowell contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, James Garfield loses the 1880 election to Samuel J. Tilden after Tilden uses underhanded tactics to win the election. However, Garfield gets help from Charles J. Guiteau (his assassin in real history) and they assassinate Tilden before he can be inaugurated as the 20th president.
- In the alternate history novel The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, John Nance Garner was elected as vice president in 1932 as the running mate of Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, Garner himself was inaugurated as the 32nd President on March 4, 1933 as a result of President-elect Roosevelt's assassination by Giuseppe Zangara on February 15, 1933. He was re-elected in 1936, but failed to combat the Great Depression and the United States remained strongly isolationist. He was succeeded in the 1940 election by the Republican John W. Bricker, who also failed to confront the economic and foreign policy issues. As a result of their combined presidencies, the Axis powers won World War II and invaded and conquered the United States in 1948.
- In the Elseworlds one-shot comic book Superman: War of the Worlds, Vice President Garner became the 33rd President in the aftermath of the Martian invasion of 1938, in which Franklin D. Roosevelt was killed. Lex Luthor was his vice president.
- In the alternate history short story "Joe Steele" by Harry Turtledove, John Nance Garner was elected vice president in 1932 as the running mate of Congressman Joe Steele of Fresno, who defeated the extremely unpopular Republican incumbent Herbert Hoover to become the 32nd President. In the years that followed, President Steele slowly but surely built up the powers of his office until he was effectively the dictator of the United States. Steele was ultimately elected to six terms from 1932 to 1952. Observing the ruthless manner in which Steele dispatched his enemies, both real and imagined, Garner kept his head down and consequently remained his vice president for 20 years. After Steele died six weeks into his sixth term on March 5, 1953, the 84-year-old Garner briefly succeeded him as the 33rd President. However, he was almost immediately overthrown and executed by J. Edgar Hoover, who proved to be even more tyrannical than Steele.
- In the alternate history novel The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith in which the United States became a libertarian state in 1794 after a successful Whiskey Rebellion and the overthrowing and execution of George Washington by firing squad for treason, Edmond-Charles Genêt served as the 3rd President of the North American Confederacy from 1812 to 1820.
- In the 1999 short story "Hillary Orbits Venus" by Pamela Sargent, John Glenn was elected President in 1976 and 1980. His two immediate successors were Bob Dole and Bill Clinton. By 1998, he and Dole were the only living former Presidents.
- In the short story "Fellow Americans" by Eileen Gunn in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Barry Goldwater defeated the early favourite and incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 election to become the 37th President. He was subsequently re-elected in 1968. His vice president was William E. Miller. During his term in office, President Goldwater ordered that nuclear weapons be deployed against North Vietnam in the Vietnam War. By 1990, tactical nuclear weapons were frequently used in the troubled parts of the world, including the Middle East. This led to a high level of genetic mutation among children in the relevant areas as well as mutations in certain species of animals such as rats. There was also speculation that the ongoing AIDS epidemic could be attributed to the significant nuclear fallout over the previous two decades. Having been re-elected in 1968, Goldwater left office after serving two full terms on January 20, 1973. He retired to the Arizona desert where he resided with his wife Peggy until her death in 1985. In the interest of raising contributions for the Barry Goldwater Presidential Museum, Goldwater put his distaste for television aside and agreed to be interviewed by the highly respected PBS political commentator Geraldo Riviera, who questioned him on his use of nuclear weapons in Vietnam, on Geraldo's Manifest Destinies. As Goldwater had never liked nor trusted his fellow Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon, he was pleased that Dwight D. Eisenhower's former vice president had retired from politics in the early 1960s and had therefore never acceded to the nation's highest office. Nixon subsequently parlayed his electoral defeat into television success and was given a late-night talk show entitled Tricky Dick (referring to his famous political nickname) on NBC in 1970. Much to Goldwater's annoyance, the series garnered high ratings from its inception and, by 1990, was still as popular as ever despite being on its twentieth season. He believed that it was time for the 77-year-old Nixon to retire from television as well as politics. Upon reading in The Washington Post that Robert F. Kennedy, the Governor of New York, was considering seeking the Democratic presidential nomination for the 1992 election, Goldwater considered it highly unlikely as he had never actively sought the nomination previously. However, after a failed assassination attempt at the 1990 New York World's Fair, Governor Kennedy informed his wife Ethel Kennedy that he was going to announce in January 1991 that he was indeed planning to run.
- In Kim Newman and Eugene Byrne's alternate history novel Back in the USSA, Barry Goldwater is president of the United Socialist States of America (USSA), succeeding Al Capone. Goldwater serves as a parallel to Nikita Khrushchev, and is succeeded by Richard Nixon (Leonid Brezhnev).
- Shown as the 43rd and current president in an alternate reality in The One (2001) and in the comic book Hero Squared X-Tra Sized Special.
- The One was produced before the outcome of the 2000 Presidential Election was known. In keeping with the film's alternate-universe concept, the filmmakers used stock footage of Al Gore and George W. Bush to create a pair of similar mockup news broadcasts of each candidate as President. The eventual winner's version would be inserted into a scene in "our" universe, while the other would be shown in an alternate universe.
- Was allowed to sit at the desk of the Oval Office on the set of The West Wing in a skit from Saturday Night Live making fun of the television show and depicting Al Gore, who had just lost the United States presidential election, 2000, as overly eager to act the role of president on his visit to the television set.
- The opening sketch of a 2006 episode of Saturday Night Live showed him addressing the nation, describing how his reversal of global warming led to encroaching glaciers, offering to bail out the oil companies because oil prices had dropped dramatically due to the popularity of alternative fuels, California had left the Union to become the nation of "Mexifornia", Major League Baseball Commissioner George W. Bush was doing his best to crack down on the use of steroids, Afghanistan was an extremely popular Spring Break destination, and a Six Flags theme park had been opened in Tehran
- The television series SeaQuest DSV implies that Al Gore had become President sometime before 2032, as the show's namesake vessel was stationed at the nonexistent Fort Gore.
- Is mentioned as the president in the webcomic The Spiders, focusing on an alternative American invasion of Afghanistan.
- Mentioned as President in the episode "Meet the Quagmires" of Family Guy when Peter Griffin is allowed by Death to go back in time and ends up marrying Molly Ringwald instead of Lois Pewterschmidt thus allowing Glen Quagmire to marry her instead. Al Gore is President and enacts liberal policies beneficial to the country and has found and strangled Osama bin Laden to death on the set of MADtv. Brian Griffin uses this as an argument to prevent Peter from returning to the past to set things the way they were, but Peter insists on correcting the past.
- In The Execution Channel by Ken MacLeod, Al Gore was elected as the 43rd President in 2000, defeating George W. Bush. His vice president was Joe Lieberman. The point explicitly made by the author is that – with the September 11 attacks still happening with a Democrat in the White House – Gore and Hillary Clinton who succeeds him as President would have undertaken an aggressive War on Terrorism similar to that undertaken by George W. Bush in actual history, leading to an unstable, oppressive situation in the later part of the 21st century when the plot is set.
- In the alternate history novel 43*: When Gore Beat Bush - A Political Fable by Jeff Greenfield, Al Gore defeated George W. Bush in 2000 and became the 43rd President.
- On Futurama, Al Gore was supposed to become the 43rd president. However, it was revealed in Bender's Big Score that Bender destroyed most of Gore's votes in Florida and caused George W. Bush to become president. Later on in his life, Al Gore would become the first Emperor of the Moon and would be put inside a head in a jar by the year 3000.
- In the alternate history short story "We are Not Amused" by Laura Resnick contained in the anthology Alternate Presidents, Ulysses Grant was precluded from running for re-election in 1872 due to a new constitutional amendment which stated that no president may be elected more than once. He was succeeded by Victoria Woodhull, who became the 19th President as well as the first woman to hold the office.
- In the alternate history novel The Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove, General Grant's great achievement in 1862–63 was to seize control of the Mississippi River by defeating a series of uncoordinated Confederate armies and by capturing Vicksburg in July 1863. After a victory at Chattanooga in late 1863, President Abraham Lincoln made him general-in-chief of the Union Army. He faced Confederate General Robert E. Lee during the Battle of the Wilderness through which he attempted to advance on Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital. Grant's superiority in numbers came to naught due to the AK-47s supplied by the Rivington Men, who were in actuality members of the South African white supremacist organisation Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging who had travelled back in time from 2014, to Lee. A second defeat at Bealeton, Virginia allowed Lee to advance on and capture Washington, D.C.. Grant later served as an Election Commissioner during the Kentucky and Missouri state-wide referendum on whether they would remain with the Union or join the Confederacy. Although he had a reputation as a heavy drinker, Grant remained abstinent during the election campaign, preferring coffee at dinner with fellow commissioner General Lee. However, the night of the vote, after it became clear Kentucky voted to join the Confederate States, he drank himself into a stupor. In 1868, Lee had the opportunity to review Grant's Overland Campaign as it had taken place in the world the Rivington Men had come from.
- In the Southern Victory alternate history novel How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove, Ulysses Grant achieved a string of victories in 1862. However, these eventually came to naught as General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia forced the Army of the Potomac under the command of General George B. McClellan onto the banks of the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania and destroyed the opposing army in the Battle of Camp Hill on October 1, 1862. Following this decisive victory, Lee moved eastward and occupied Philadelphia. As a direct result, the Confederate States of America earned diplomatic recognition from the United Kingdom and the France, which forced the United States to mediate. The Confederacy therefore gains full recognition in the War of Secession came to an end on November 4, 1862. Grant became deeply depressed and reverted to his pre-war alcoholism. At the outset of the Second Mexican War in 1881, General Grant was one of the few sympathetic members of a crowd in St. Louis addressed by Frederick Douglass. He later died of his alcoholism. As McClellan was considered to be one of the worst generals in US history, the most common criticism of Lincoln in subsequent years was that he did relieve McClellan of his duties and replace him with a more competent general such as Grant.
- In the Elseworlds one-shot comic book Superman: A Nation Divided in which Kal-El's spaceship landed in Kansas during the 1840s and he was raised by a farming couple named Josephus and Sarah Kent, General Grant was at the Battle of Vicksburg on May 23, 1863 when he was notified of the capture of the city and his opponent, Confederate States Army General John C. Pemberton by the superhuman individual Private Atticus Kent. He and German William Tecumseh Sherman realised the potential that Atticus had in the Union Army. When he sent a letter to President Abraham Lincoln informing him of Atticus' tremendous contributions to the war effort, the President wondered if Grant was once again drinking heavily. However, Lincoln was convinced when Atticus came to the Oval Office and demonstrated his powers. He came to agree with Grant's assessment that Atticus would prove to be the Union's secret weapon against the Confederate States of America. Grant later participated in the Battle of Gettysburg, during which Atticus, who was by then a captain, captured Confederate Generals J.E.B. Stuart and Robert E. Lee and the instructed the latter to order to his troops to surrender. Atticus spent the next two days burying the dead. General Grant consoled him by telling him that many more men would have been killed if it had not been for Atticus.
- In the alternate history novel The Probability Broach by L. Neil Smith in which the United States became a libertarian state in 1794 after a successful Whiskey Rebellion and the overthrowing and execution of George Washington by firing squad for treason, Sequoyah Guess served as the 8th President of the North American Confederacy from 1840 until his death in a battle in 1842. He was the first Native American president and was succeeded by Osceola, who served as the 9th president from 1842 to 1848.