Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy (41 page)

Their older surviving son:
Trefousse,
Andrew Johnson
, p. 168; Bowen, p. 82.

Johnson’s bodyguard:
Johnson to Mary Johnson, December 7, 1856, in
Johnson Papers
1:592–93; Cowan, pp. 7, 11, 14; Moore Diary/AJ, p. 27 (February 24, 1867); Blaine, vol. 1, p. 325; McCulloch, p. 404; Margarita Spalding Gerry, “Andrew Johnson in the White House, Being the Reminiscences of William H. Crook,”
Century
126: 877 (1908).

He once claimed to like circuses:
Cowan, p. 6 and passim; Turner, p. 170; George Fort Milton,
The Age of Hate: Andrew Johnson and the Radicals
, New York: Coward-McCann (1930), p. 121.

Those who met with Johnson: Cong. Globe
, 28th Cong., 1st sess., app. 96 (January 31, 1844), in
Johnson Papers
1:140; Bowen, p. 2; George W. Julian,
Political Recollections, 1840 to 1872
, New York: Jansen, McClurg & Co. (1884), p. 243.

“Of all the dangers”:
Benjamin B. French to Johnson, February 8, 1866, in
Johnson Papers
10:57;
Cong. Globe
, 40th Cong., 2d sess., app. 2–3 (December 3, 1867).

When Wade suggested:
Trefousse,
Andrew Johnson
, pp. 197–98; “Interview with Pennsylvania Delegation,” May 3, 1865, in
Johnson Papers
8:22; Mary Land, “Ben Wade,” in Kenneth Wheeler, ed.,
For the Union: Ohio Leaders in the Civil War
, Columbus: Ohio State University Press (1998), p. 217;
Memoirs of W. W. Holden,
Durham (NC): Seeman Printery (1911), pp. 55–56.

Ultimately, the president abandoned:
Testimony before House Judiciary Committee, July 18, 1867, in
Grant Papers
17:212–16.

With Secretary of State Seward:
James L. Swanson,
Manhunt
, New York: HarperCollins (2006), pp. 202–3; Henry Dawes, “Recollections of Stanton Under Johnson,”
Atlantic Monthly
74:497 (October 1894).

“The prim conservatives”:
“Reconstruction,” September 6, 1865, in
Stevens Papers
2:23.

He thought the nation:
Charles O. Lerche, Jr., “Congressional Interpretation of the Guarantee of a Republican Form of Government During Reconstruction,”
Journal of Southern History
15:192 (1949); quoted in James M. Scovel, “Thaddeus Stevens,”
Lippincott’s Monthly
, April 1898, p. 546.

The States had brought:
“Interview with
The Times
(London) Correspondent,” January 10, 1867, in
Johnson Papers
11:596.

He might nudge:
Johnson to William L. Sharkey, August 15, 1868, in
Johnson Papers
8:599–600; “Interview with George L. Stearns,” October 3, 1865, in
Johnson Papers
9:180; Johnson to Sharkey, August 21, 1865, in
Johnson Papers
8:635; Circular to Provisional Governors, August 22, 1865, ibid., p. 639; Johnson to Sharkey, November 17, 1865, in
Johnson Papers
8:400.

An aide remarked:
“Interview with John A. Logan,” May 31, 1865, in
Johnson Papers
8:153–54; “Interview with South Carolina Delegation,” June 24, 1865, in
Johnson Papers
8:282–83; Cowan, p. 14.

“According to the constitution”:
Seward to Gasparin, July 10, 1865, in Seward Papers. In 1867, Johnson described Seward as “an Old Roman.” A Johnson aide declared that the president had “a most sincere and friendly feeling” for his secretary of state. The aide marveled at Seward’s “equanimity under all circumstances.” Moore Diary/AJ, May 7, 1867.

His proclamation granted amnesty: New York Times
, June 26, 1865; Michael Perman,
Reunion Without Compromise: The South and Reconstruction, 1865–1868
, London: Cambridge University Press (1973), pp. 4–12, 70–71.

Only six weeks:
George Baber, “Johnson, Grant, Seward, Sumner,”
North American Review
145:72 (1887); Trefousse,
Andrew Johnson,
pp. 216–17.

Stevens’s father:
Ralph Korngold,
Thaddeus Stevens, A Being Darkly Wise and Rudely Great
, New York: Harcourt Brace & Co. (1955), p. 6; Fawn M. Brodie,
Thaddeus Stevens, Scourge of the South
, New York: W. W. Norton & Co. (1959), pp. 23–24.

A neighbor recalled: New York Times
, August 14, 1868, quoting
Philadelphia Press
.

Though he ultimately:
Brodie, p. 25.

A congressional colleague: Cong. Globe
, 40th Cong., 3d sess., p. 139 (December 17, 1868) (Ignatius Donnelly).

He never answered:
Alexander Harris,
A Biographical History of Lancaster County
, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co. (1974; originally 1872), p. 575; interview with David Foulk, Lancaster Historical Society, June 29, 2007; Scovel, p. 460; Trefousse,
Thaddeus Stevens: Nineteenth Century Egalitarian
, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press (1997), pp. 69–70. In his final year, Stevens was accused of living in “open adultery” with Mrs. Smith. Brodie, p. 89. This attack elicited from him a textbook nondenial. After recounting his longtime practice of hiring housekeepers, he wrote, “I believe I can say that no child was ever raised or, so far as I know, begotten under my roof.” Stevens to W. B. Melius, September 14, 1867, in
Stevens Papers
2:328. That was, as he knew, not the question.

With no further statement from Stevens, the evidence is suggestive, but not definitive. One friend referred to their “unwritten romance,” praising Mrs. Smith’s “unselfish and tender devotion” to Stevens. Scovel, p. 550. When a minister friend faced accusations that he approved of Stevens “living out of wedlock with the woman who kept his house,” the minister confessed he should have been “more guarded.” J. Blanchard to E. McPherson, January 28, 1869, in McPherson Papers. One biographer, Fawn Brodie, concluded that Stevens and Mrs. Smith must have been sexual intimates. She emphasized that Stevens paid for a fine portrait of Lydia Smith, something he would not do for “a colored woman who was merely his respected housekeeper.” Brodie, p. 88. In his will, Stevens left Mrs. Smith his furniture, as well as her choice of a yearly payment of $500 for life or a lump sum of $5,000. Trefousse,
Thaddeus Stevens
, p. 244.

One enchanted observer:
George S. Boutwell,
Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs
, New York: Greenwood Press (1968), vol. 2, p. 10; Schurz,
Reminiscences,
vol. 3, p. 217; Staudenraus, p. 104.

He reminded Lincoln:
Schurz,
Reminiscences
, vol. 3, p. 214; Brodie, p. 95; Scovel, p. 549; Korngold, p. 112. The appointee with larcenous tendencies was Secretary of War Simon Cameron.

One observer thought:
Schurz,
Reminiscences,
vol. 3, p. 214. A congressional colleague emphasized how Stevens limped on “his short, club-footed leg.” Riddle,
Recollections of War Times,
p. 31.

Ever gallant:
Trefousse,
Thaddeus Stevens
, pp. 7–8.

Otherwise, many would “think”:
Stevens to Johnson, May 16, 1865, in
Stevens Papers
2:5.

“Among all the leading”:
Stevens to Johnson, July 6, 1865, in ibid., 2:7.

Johnson’s designee:
Benjamin Perry,
Reminiscences of Public Men, with Speeches and Addresses
, Philadelphia: J. D. Avil & Co., (1883), pp. 248–49; Dan T. Carter,
When the War Was Over: The Failure of Self-Reconstruction in the South, 1865–67
, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press (1985), p. 31.

The presence of such men:
Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, 39th Cong., 1st sess., p. x (1866); Epps, p. 56; Carter, pp. 228–29; Milton, p. 256; Blaine, vol. 2, p. 113.

Yet the president:
Johnson to James Johnson, November 26, 1865, in
Johnson Papers
9:432; Johnson to James B. Steedman, November 24, 1865, ibid., 9:434.

Equally incendiary:
Blaine, vol. 2, p. 94.

One Republican called them:
Kenneth M. Stampp,
The Era of Reconstruction
, 1865–1877, New York: Alfred A. Knopf (1965), p. 80 (quoting Schurz).

Though specific terms:
Blaine, vol. 2, p. 94.

Vagrancy laws:
One traveler observed a chain gang of Negroes working on the streets of Selma, Alabama. They seemed no different from slaves. The prisoners had committed

John T. Trowbridge,
The Desolate South, 1865–1866
, Gordon Carroll, ed., New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce (1956), pp. 225–26. As one Southern scholar has concluded, the black codes were “unequivocally discriminatory and designed to keep blacks in a subordinate economic and social relationship to whites.” Carter, p. 218.

In a Mississippi hotel:
John Richard Dennett,
The South As It Is
, Henry M. Christman, ed., New York: Viking Press (1965; originally 1866), p. 351.

According to one traveler:
Whitelaw Reid,
After the War: A Southern Tour, May 1, 1865, to May 1, 1866
, New York: Moore, Wilstach & Baldwin (1866), p. 237; ibid., 219; Leon Plossom to Butler, December 5, 1866, in Butler Papers, Box 41.

Northerners began to fret: Chicago Tribune
, December 15, 1865; Stampp, p. 85; Carter, pp. 227–28.

“[
i
]
f Andy Johnson were a snake”:
Turner, p. 170.

By 1866, Johnson had granted:
Reid, pp. 304–6. This theme is discussed in a variety of sources. Stampp, p. 71; Temple, p. 419; Bowen, p. 43; Eric Foner,
Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877,
New York: Harper & Row (1988), pp. 191–92; Jonathan Truman Dorris, “Pardon and Amnesty During the Civil War and Reconstruction,” Abstract of Ph.D. thesis, University of Illinois, 1926, pp. 9–12.

3. LAND OF REVOLUTION

Nothing renders society:
Frederick Bancroft, ed.,
Speeches, Correspondence and Political Papers of Carl Schurz
, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons (1913), vol. I, p. 354.

A city of ruins:
Trowbridge, pp. 39, 314; Dennett, pp. 8, 230, 237; Andrews, p. 1.

“People on Main Street”:
Report to Johnson by William Elder, Treasury Department, May 23, 1868, in Johnson Papers, Reel 14; Charles M. Blackford,
Letters from Lee’s Army
, Susan L. Blackford, ed., New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons (1947), p. 295. Other travelers described similar scenes in 1865 and 1866. Dennett, p. 45; Trowbridge, p. 153.

Political rights for the former slaves:
Andrews, p. 87.

As one visitor observed:
Carter, p. 202, quoting
Philadelphia Inquirer
, August 9, 1865.

“You know how a bird”:
Schurz,
Reminiscences
, vol. 3, p. 174; Dennett, pp. 95, 364; Trowbridge, p. 38.

As one Northern correspondent:
Dennett, pp. 39, 79, 124; James M. Smallwood,
Time of Hope, Time of Despair: Black Texans During Reconstruction
, Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press (1981), p. 29. Trowbridge, p. 56; Reid, pp. 44, 173; Foner, p. 199; Andrews, pp. 127, 178, 188, 322, 370–71; Hans Trefousse, ed.,
Background for Radical Reconstruction
, New York: Little Brown & Co. (1970), pp. 11 and 52 (testimony of Orlando Brown, Freedmen’s Bureau official in Richmond: “By vagrant laws, and by availing themselves of the ignorance of the Negroes in the making of contracts, by getting them in debt, and otherwise, they would place them, I think, in a worse condition than they were when slaves.”) This pattern is discussed in Stampp, pp. 199–201.