Basic Facts:
Birth: December 29, 1808 at Raleigh, North Carolina
Death: July 31, 1875 at Carter Station, Tennessee
Married: Eliza McCardle (1810-1876) on May 17, 1827
Children: 5: Martha, Charles, Mary, Robert, Andrew
President: One term beginning April 15, 1865
Family
Per Wikipedia:
One day in September 1826, Eliza was chatting with classmates from Rhea Academy when she spotted Andrew Johnson and his family pull into town with all their belongings. They instantly took a liking to each other. Andrew Johnson, 18, married Eliza McCardle, 16, on May 17, 1827, at the home of the bride’s mother in Greeneville. Mordecai Lincoln, a distant relative of Abraham Lincoln, presided over the nuptials.
At 16, Eliza Johnson married at a younger age than any other First Lady. She was rather tall and had hazel eyes, brown hair and a good figure. She was better educated than Johnson, who by this time had barely taught himself to read and spell a little. Johnson credited his wife for teaching him to do arithmetic and to write, as he had never attended school. She tutored him patiently, while he labored in his tailor shop. She often read aloud to him.
The Johnsons had three sons and two daughters, all born in Greeneville, Tennessee. By the time that Johnson became president, Eliza was an invalid from tuberculosis, confined to her room all the time. Their daughter Martha served as hostess during formal functions.
From 1860 to 1861, Eliza lived in Washington with her husband. After the war started, however, Eliza returned to Greeneville. Johnson’s pro-union stand made him so unpopular that threats were made against his life, making Eliza fearful. In 1862 Eliza, along with daughter Mary (Mrs. Daniel Stover), son Frank and son Charles, fled to Nashville. Eventually she would travel to Cincinnati and to Indiana to seek out a spa for her health.
- Martha Johnson (1828–1901). She married David T. Patterson, who after the Civil War served as U.S. Senator from Tennessee. She served as official White House hostess in place of her mother.
- Charles Johnson (1830–1863) – doctor, pharmacist. At the outbreak of the Civil War, he remained loyal to the Union. While recruiting Tennessee boys for the Union Army, he became the object of an intense Confederate manhunt. He joined the Middle Tennessee Union Infantry as an assistant surgeon; he was thrown from his horse and killed at age 33.
- Mary Johnson (1832–1883). She married Dan Stover, who served as colonel of the Fourth Tennessee Union Infantry during the Civil War. Following the death of her husband of consumption in 1864, she married W.R. Brown. She died at age 50.
- Robert Johnson (1834–1869) – lawyer and politician. He served for a time in the Tennessee state legislature. During the Civil War, he was commissioned colonel of the First Tennessee Union Cavalry. He was private secretary to his father during his tenure as president. He became alcoholic and committed suicide at age 35.
- Andrew Johnson Jr. (1852–1879) – His siblings were 18-24 years old when he was born. Journalist. He founded the weekly Greeneville Intelligencer, but it failed after three years. He died soon thereafter at age 26.
Other
Andrew Johnson, the 17th President, was born in North Carolina and grew up in Tennessee. He was Governor of Tennessee from 1853-1857.
(James Knox Polk was the 11th President. He also was born in North Carolina but grew up in Tennessee. He was Governor of Tennessee from 1839-1841.)
He was 5 feet and 10 inches tall.
Johnson was thirty-four when first elected to Congress in 1843.
When a redistricting of his state by the Whigs made it impossible for him to be re-elected to Congress, he returned to Tennessee and was elected governor in 1853.
When he was the Governor of Tennessee, former US President Andrew Johnson made with his own hands a very handsome suit of clothes and sent it to the Governor of Kentucky, who had been a blacksmith in his young days. He forged a shovel and tongs and sent them to Johnson.
The Tennessee legislature elected him to the U. S. Senate in 1857. He supported the Fugitive Slave Act and the right to own enslaved people. However, when states started to secede from the Union in 1861, Johnson was the only southern senator who did not agree. Because of this, he retained his seat. Southerners viewed him as a traitor. Johnson saw both secessionists and abolitionists as enemies to the union.
In the Democratic National Convention of 1860, Johnson was proposed for the presidential nomination by Tennessee but he withdrew his name and campaigned for John Breckinridge. As a southerner, it was assumed that he was a secessionist. After Lincoln was elected, Johnson forthrightly denounced the secessionist movement and declared his intentions to remain loyal to the Union. Of the secessionists he said:
“I would have them arrested and tried for treason, and, if convicted, by the eternal God, they should suffer the penalty of the law at the hands of the executioner.”
At the National Union Convention in Baltimore in June, 1864, the delegates chose Johnson as the vice-presidential candidate. The presence of a Jackson Democrat on the Union ticket helped Lincoln defeat his opponent, General George McClellan.
Johnson owned a few slaves and was supportive of James K. Polk’s slavery policies. As military governor of Tennessee, he convinced Abraham Lincoln to exempt that area from the Emancipation Proclamation.
In 1867, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act. This denied the president the right to remove his own appointed officials from office. Despite the Act, Johnson removed Edwin Stanton, his Secretary of War, from office in 1868. He put war hero Ulysses S. Grant in his place. Because of this, the House of Representatives voted to impeach him, making him the first president to be impeached. However, because of the vote of Edmund G. Ross kept the Senate from removing him from office.
Major Events While in Office
- Reconstruction
- Thirteenth Amendment Ratified (1865)
- Alaska Purchased (1867) for $7.2 million
- Impeachment Proceedings (1868)
- Fourteenth Amendment Ratified (1868)
- Nebraska became a state (1867)
In the White House, he was said to be preoccupied with a family of mice that had taken up residence in his bedroom. He left out water for them and made sure flour was available in case they wanted something to eat.
Following his departure from office in 1869, Johnson served in the Senate—the only president ever to do so following his presidential term—before succumbing to a stroke in July 1875.
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Sources:
Internet Public Library
thoughtco.com
Mental Floss.com
Interesting facts World.com
The Timeline History of U. S. Presidents and First Ladies by Barbara Greenman, Thunder Bay Press, San Diego, California, 2009.