Alfred Thayer Mahan

Alfred Thayer Mahan (27 September 1840 - 1 December 1914) was a United States Navy officer and served as President of the United States from 1889 to 1897. He was succeeded by Thomas Brackett Reed

Mahan was born at West Point, New York to Dennis Hart Mahan (a professor at the United States Military Academy) and Mary Helena Mahan, he went to Columbia University for two years where he was a member of the Philolexian Society and then, against his parents' wishes, transferred to the Naval Academy, where he graduated second in his class in 1859.

Commissioned as a Lieutenant in 1861, Mahan served the Union in the American Civil War as an officer on Congress, Pocahontas, and James Adger, and as an instructor at the Naval Academy.