Andrew Johnson
Andrew Johnson (Dec. 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) was the 17th President of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Prior to that, he was Vice President to President Abraham Lincoln and the military governor of Tennessee. He represented Tennessee in the U.S. Senate prior to the Civil War. He argued fiercely against secession and twice visited Scott County.
Early Life
Andrew Johnson was born in Raleigh, N.C. on Dec. 29, 1808, the son of Jacob Johnson (1778-1812) and Mary “Polly” McDonough (1783-1856). His father died of a heart attack when he was three, and his mother worked as a washerwoman to support the family. He was legally bound to a tailor until his 21st birthday after beginning an apprenticeship there when he was 10. Throughout his political career, he frequently reminded voters of his poor upbringing.
Johnson eventually left North Carolina and traveled to Tennessee, mostly on foot. He spent a brief period of time in Knoxville before moving to Mooresville, Alabama. He later returned to Greeneville and established a tailoring business in front of his home. In 1827, at the age of 18, he married 16-year-old Eliza McCardle, the daughter of a Greeneville shoemaker. They had five children: Martha (born 1828), Charles (1830), Mary (1832), Robert (1834) and Andrew Jr. (1852).
Slaveowner
Although Andrew Johnson would rally against secession, he was a slaveowner. He purchased his first slave, a 14-year-old girl named Dolly, in 1843. She had three children, Liz, Florence, and William. He later purchased her half-brother, Sam Johnson. Sam and his wife, Margaret, had nine children. In 1857, Johnson purchased a 13-year-old boy named Henry, who later accompanied him to the White House. He owned at least 10 slaves.
Johnson’s legacy as a slave owner was complicated. One of his slaves, Sam Johnson, was a commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau. During his time as a slave, he negotiated the nature of his work with the Johnson family, and received some monetary compensation for his labor. Johnson gifted him a tract of land in 1867.
Johnson granted his slaves their freedom on August 8, 1863, and hired them as paid servants. A year later, as military governor of Tennessee, he proclaimed the freedom of Tennessee’s slaves. Two of his former slaves, Sam and Margaret, lived in his tailor shop rent-free while Johnson was president. Emancipated slaves in Tennessee gifted Johnson a watch inscribed with “for his Untiring Energy in the Cause of Freedom.”
Nevertheless, Johnson was viewed as being a racist who as president worked to undermine Reconstruction efforts. He vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, claiming it discriminated against white people in favor of African-Americans. He later vetoed the Freedmen Bureau’s Act.
Political office
Johnson served as an alderman and mayor in Greeneville before being elected to the Tennessee House of Representatives Representatives in 1835. He also served in the Tennessee Senate before being elected to Congress in 1843. He served five two-year terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, then was elected governor of Tennessee in 1853. Later, the state legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate in 1857. He had been a candidate for president in 1856.
In 1862, after Union forces seized control of Nashville, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Johnson the military governor of Tennessee. In 1864, he was Lincoln’s running mate as the president sought re-election. He was appointed 17th president of the United States on April 15, 1865, after Lincoln was assassinated. He served until March 4, 1869, when he was succeeded by former war general Ulysses S. Grant, who defeated him in the 1868 election.
Johnson later returned to the U.S. Senate in 1865, serving almost five months.
Anti-secession stance
Johnson was firmly loyal to the Union as the secession crisis unfolded in 1860. When Tennessee seceded in 1861, he became the only sitting senator from a Confederate state who did not promptly resign his seat.
In December 1859, two months after abolitionist John Brown and his sympathizers raided a federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Johnson gave a major speech on the Senate floor, decrying Northerners who endangered the Union by seeking to outlaw slavery. Johnson believed that the “all men are created equal” doctrine from the Declaration of Independence did not apply to African Americans.
After Lincoln’s election in 1860 gave rise to the secession talks in the South, Johnson again gave a speech on the Senate floor, arguing against secession. He said, “I will not give up this government … No; I intend to stand by it … and I invite every man who is a patriot to … rally around the altar of our common country … and swear by our God, and all that is sacred and holy, that the Constitution shall be saved, and the Union preserved.”
First visit to Scott County
Johnson returned to Tennessee to campaign against secession at a time when his successor as governor, Isham G. Harris, was campaigning hard for secession. Johnson and Congressman Horace Maynard visited Scott County on June 4, 1861, with Johnson delivering an anti-secession speech on the steps of the Scott County Courthouse in Huntsville. Four days later, Scott Countians voted 541-19 against secession, the largest margin of any county in Tennessee.
Johnson spent the night at a home on Black Creek near Robbins while he was in Scott County, and escaped under the cover of darkness amid fears that anti-Union rebels would attempt to harm him.
Because he was the only Senator from a seceded state who remained in Congress, Johnson had President Lincoln’s ear during the early part of the war. He spent congressional recesses in Kentucky and Ohio, attempting without success to convince Union army commanders to conduct operations into East Tennessee, which was mostly pro-Union, in an attempt to free it from the Confederacy.
Finally, Lincoln appointed Johnson military governor of Tennessee in April 1862. The middle and western portions of the state had been recovered from the Confederacy by that time. However, the eastern part of the state — including Johnson’s native Greeneville — remained in Confederate control. The Rebels responded to Lincoln’s appointment of Johnson by confiscating his land and his slaves. They turned his home into a military hospital.
As military governor, Johnson demanded loyalty oaths to the Union from public officials and shut down all newspapers owned by Confederate sympathizers. Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, which declared freedom for all slaves in Confederate-held areas, exempted Tennessee at Johnson’s request. However, Johnson later decided to declare an end to slavery in Tennessee. He wrote: “If the institution of slavery … seeks to overthrow (the government), then the Government has a clear right to destroy it.” He also begrudgingly recruited 20,000 black soldiers from Tennessee to serve in the Union army.
Second visit to Scott County
Johnson left the White House in 1869 largely disgraced. He returned to Greeneville, and remained popular in Tennessee. He narrowly failed in an 1869 bid for the U.S. Senate, 54-51 to Henry Cooper. He also failed in an 1872 bid for a congressional seat for Tennessee, though he was eventually returned to the Senate in 1875.
During his 1872 congressional campaign, Johnson visited Scott County a second time, delivering a campaign speech in Huntsville.
During his speech in Huntsville, Johnson spoke about loyalty and patriotism and how Scott County had sided with the Union during the war. Historian H. Clay Smith wrote that Johnson told his audience that he had spoken with Lincoln about Scott Countians during the war, and had told the president how loyal the people of Tennessee were to the Union.
In the audience that day was Nat Hancock, a former slave who spent the rest of his life in Scott County after emancipation. Johnson addressed him specifically. He started by reading from a poster that said, “I will keep at all times a good stock of negroes all from selected stock consisting of good field hands, blacksmiths, drivers of stock and generally any type of help wanted. Also a good trade of trusted mammies and young and old season cooks, seamstresses and granny women.” Johnson then turned to Hancock and said, “Mr. Hancock, you will never know the dread of such notices again.”
Death
Johnson was re-elected to the U.S. Senate and assumed office in March 1875. However, he suffered a stroke a few months later and died in Elizabethton, Tenn. on July 31, 1875, at the age of 66. He was buried at the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery in Greeneville.
Eliza McCardle Johnson died on Jan. 15, 1876, and is also buried at the cemetery.