S
eemingly from birth, William
Haines Lytle was bound for glory.
As the last surviving male offspring
of one of Cincinnati’s leading pio-
neer families, Lytle was the proto-
typical golden boy. Blessed with
good looks, a winning personality, and a
verbal facility that enabled him to begin
reading at the age of four, he was groomed
from the start to fulfill a special destiny. By
the time he was 16, Lytle was one of the
most popular young men in the Queen
City. His adoring sister Lily was not alone
in believing that he was destined one day
to become president of the United States.
Politics, poetry, and the law vied for
Lytle’s adult attention, but his special inter-
est—like that of his great-grandfather, Cap-
tain William Lytle—was the military. At the
age of three, he was painted in a full uni-
form with a dress sword hanging at his
side; a year later he received his first gun.
Short and slender (he was five feet, six
inches tall), Lytle nevertheless had inherited
his namesake’s love of fighting. The old
captain had fought successively against the
French, the British, and the Indians on the
western frontier before settling down near
Lexington, Kentucky. His son, also named
William, moved to Cincinnati in 1806 and
built a handsome mansion on the outskirts
of the city, from which he presided over the
upper reaches of Cincinnati business and
cultural life. The younger Lytle was a
patron of the arts, commissioning John
James Audubon to paint his and his wife’s
portraits and donating a princely $11,500
to newly founded Cincinnati College.
World-famous songwriter Stephen Foster
was a distant relative.
William Haines Lytle, called Will, was
born on November 2, 1826. His father,
Robert Lytle, was more interested in poli-
tics than the military. Dubbed “Orator
Bob,” he was elected to the Ohio House of
Representatives in 1828 and the United
States House of Representatives four years
later. A lifelong Democrat, Robert Lytle
was a personal friend of future presidents
James K. Polk and Franklin Pierce, and his
son Will was dandled on the lap of Presi-
dent Andrew Jackson. (Young Will72 National Archives“I Am
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