Charles S. Stratton was born in 1838 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He was a normal baby, weighing nine pounds and two ounces at birth but by late 1842, when he was approaching the age of five, Charles was only two feet and one inch tall and weighed fifteen pounds and two ounces. This is when P. T. Barnum met him and determined to exhibit him. Barnum named his protege after King Arthur's knight Sir Tom , upgrading his title to General for effect. Barnum modeled his protege after a midget named Sir Jeffrey Hudson. Jeffrey was born in England in 1619 and never grew taller than eighteen inches until he was thirty years old. His father was the keeper of the baiting-bulls for the Duke of Buckingham and in 1626, when Jeffrey was seven years old, he gave young Jeffrey to the Duke. The Duke hid Jeffrey in a cold baked pie and served him to Queen Henrietta Maria, who was so enchanted she convinced the King to have him knighted. Thus Sir Jeffrey became a Captain of the horse and a darling at court. Sir Jeffrey had many adventures, which included being sold into slavery by pirates and nearly drowning in a wash basin. The similarities between the respective histories of Sir Jeffrey and Tom Thumb are striking. One would be tempted to conclude that Tom was in fact Jeffrey Hudson were it not for the written references to our hero that predate Sir Jeffrey's birth by over 40 years. It appears, rather, that the life of Sir Jeffrey was modeled on that of the original Tom Thumb, and that this is what led Barnum to choose the name Tom Thumb for little Charles Stratton. In any case, General Tom Thumb went on to become one of the sensations of the nineteenth century. In 1844 Barnum took Tom on the first of two European tours where Tom had an audience with Queen Victoria of England and met Queen Isabella of Spain and King Leopold of Belgium. He so charmed the King and Queen of France in 1845 that he was invited to ride in a procession of royalty on Longchamps Day in a specially made miniature carriage drawn by a matched set of four Shetland ponies. In 1848 Tom made his acting debut in a play entitled Hop o' My Thumb. The plot centered on the antics of a miniature and clever child who outwitted a giant, and, at one point in the denouement, was served up in a pie. On February 10, 1863 Tom married Lavinia Warren when she was twenty-two years old and thirty-two inches tall. The event, which was attended by two thousand guests including congressmen, generals, and millionaires, eclipsed news of the Civil War in newspaper headlines for a time. While on their honeymoon, General and Mrs. Thumb visited President Lincoln at the White House, where he gave a dinner and reception in their honor. The public's fascination with the Tom Thumb wedding spawned a tradition of mock wedding ceremonies with the roles of bride, groom, bridesmaids, groomsmen, ushers, guests, etc. all played by children. Such spectacles, called Tom Thumb Weddings, are still staged today. Tom died of apoplexy in 1883 at the age of 45.