Thomas Woodrow Wilson moved to Augusta, Georgia as a toddler in 1858 when his father became the minister of the First Presbyterian Church. Known locally as "Tommy," he spent his highly formative childhood years living in the church manse on 7th Street until 1870. His earliest life memories were shaped by the hardships of the American Civil War and Reconstruction; he witnessed his father’s churchyard turn into a makeshift Confederate hospital and later watched Union soldiers parade a captured Jefferson Davis through the downtown streets. While in Augusta, Wilson also began his formal education—overcoming early struggles with developmental dyslexia—and got his first taste of leadership by serving as the president of a local youth baseball club alongside future Supreme Court Justice Joseph R. Lamar. This upbringing in a defeated, war-torn Southern nation deeply impacted his Presbyterian faith and permanently influenced his cautious, peaceful approach to foreign diplomacy later in life.