Julia Dent Grant

Julia Boggs Dent Grant was born into a large and slave-owning family in St. Louis Missouri. She was introduced to Ulysses S. Grant by her brother who was Ulysses's classmate at West Point, and they married on his return from the Mexican-American war. During the Civil War, Julia accompanied Ulysses on his military campaigns, where even Abraham Lincoln noted how her presence had a positive effect on the general.
Julia was an enthusiastic first lady, and organized lavish dinners and receptions designed to restore civility and dignity to Washington DC after the Civil War, assassination of Lincoln, and disrespected presidency of Andrew Johnson had cast their shadows over the White House. Julia Grant also sought to improve the prestige of the first lady's position and the position of women in the capitol generally. She would not allow sexist jokes to be told in her presence, signaled her support for women's suffrage, and was the first presidential spouse to write a memoir (although it went unpublished until the 1970s).
Julia was also born with strabismus or "crossed eyes", which is why most of her portraits -including this one- depict her in profile. She considered having them corrected with surgery as she began to emerge as a public figure, but her husband objected, saying "Did I not see you and fall in love with you with these same eyes?".