Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy (42 page)

A Virginian acknowledged:
Reid, p. 218; Dennett, pp. 42, 109.

Indeed, many government records:
Reid, pp. 33–34, 221; Dennett, pp. 48, 102, 290, 294–301; Trowbridge, pp. 47–48, 78.

Problems quickly emerged:
Dennett, pp. 76, 155, 163, 169, 191, 193; Andrews, pp. 157, 177; William McFeely,
Yankee Stepfather
, New York: W. W. Norton & Co. (1994), pp. 215–16. Trowbridge, pp. 314, 316; Trefousse,
Background
, p. 8 (testimony of Richard Hill, former slave).

“If we let a nigger”:
General Bennett in Pineville, SC, to Carl Schurz, July 25, 1865, in Johnson Papers, Reel 16; Dennett, p. 116.

A New York correspondent wrote:
Reid, pp. 325, 386–87; Dennett, p. 74.

When a black mistakenly:
Dennett, pp. 110, 182–83; Trefousse,
Background
, pp. 143–45 (testimony of Dexter H. Clapp, Freedmen’s Bureau agent) and p. 10 (testimony of Rev. William Thornton); Andrews, p. 100.

I saw in various hospitals:
Schurz,
Reminiscences
, vol. 3, p. 175. For a collection of similar descriptions of the random violence of the time, see W. E. B. DuBois,
Black Reconstruction in America
, New York: Free Press (1992), pp. 671–77.

In South Carolina:
William W. Boyce to Francis P. Blair, Sr., October 7, 1865, Johnson Papers, Reel 18.

As many as a hundred:
Smallwood, pp. 131–32, 145.

A stableman in South Carolina:
Andrews, pp. 219–20.

He knew of no occasion:
Dennett, pp. 182–83, 221; Trefousse,
Background
, pp. 21–22 (testimony of T. J. Markey) and 145 (Clapp testimony); Testimony before the Select Committee on the Murder of Union Soldiers in South Carolina, 39th Cong., 2d sess., in National Archives, File HR 39A—F28.2, p. 104 (January 28, 1867) (testimony of General Thomas Wood). Markey, the former Texas state official, told Congress that “the prevailing sentiment is so adverse to the Negro that acts of monstrous crime against him are winked at.” Trefousse,
Background
, p. 21.

Much of the violence:
Grant to Johnson, February 17, 1866, in
Grant Papers
16:69–70.

[The] freedman did not remove:
S. Rep. No. 41, Part 1, 42d Cong., 2d sess., p. 19; Smallwood, p. 32; Claude Elliott, “The Freedmen’s Bureau in Texas,”
Southwestern Historical Quarterly
56:6 (July 1952). See Trefousse,
Background
, p. 150 (H. S. Hall).

During the 1868 election:
Smallwood, p. 33;
Hearings on 1868 Elections
, 40th Cong., 3rd sess., House Misc. Docs. No. 52–53;
The Nation
7:42 (July 16, 1868); Brodie, p. 328.

Men, who are honorable:
Col. Samuel Thomas [head of the Freedmen’s Bureau in Mississippi] to O. O. Howard, September 6, 1865, Letters Received, Ser. 15, Washington Headquarters, RG 105 NA [FSSP A-9206], quoted in Foner, p. 150.

In September 1865:
James E. Sefton,
The United States Army and Reconstruction, 1865–1877
, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press (1967), pp. 27, 50–51.

Freedom for the slaves:
Reid, p. 213; Myrta Avary,
Dixie After the War
, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. (1937; originally 1906), pp. 158, 182.

The commander replied:
Johnson to General George Thomas, September 4, 1865, Official Records of the Secretary of War, RG 107, 2:1865-77, quoted in Bowen, p. 154; George Thomas to Johnson, September 7, 1865, in
Johnson Papers
8:41.

A third general:
M. C. Post, ed.,
Life and Memoirs of Comte Regis de Trobriand
, New York: E. P. Dutton & Co. (1910), pp. 347–48 (Gen. George C. Meade to Col. P. Regis de Trobriand, August 28, 1867); William Conant Church,
Ulysses S. Grant and the Period of National Preservation and Reconstruction
, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons (1897), p. 349; Trefousse,
Background
, p. 70 (Gen. Rufus Saxton).

State militias and “home guards”:
Chase to Johnson, May 17, 1865, in Johnson Papers, Reel 14; Brownlow to Johnson (telegram), May 19, 1865, ibid.; Sefton, pp. 57–66, 80;
Committee on the Murder of Union Soldiers in South Carolina
, passim; Andrews, pp. 220–21; Stephen Budiansky,
The Bloody Shirt
, New York: Viking (2008), pp. 26–27; McFeely, pp. 135, 294; Church, p. 350; Smallwood, pp. 144–45; Trowbridge, p. 197; Dennett, p. 247.

“We ought not”: Memoirs of Gen. W. T. Sherman
, New York: Charles L. Webster & Co. (1891), vol. 2, p. 424.

At its peak:
McFeely, pp. 157, 289.

To patrol the Rio Grande:
Smallwood, p. 39.

4. THE OPPOSITION GATHERS

Contemning all applause:
J. D. Binckley, “The Leader of the House,”
Galaxy
1:500 (July 1866).

In late November:
Korngold, p. 293; Trefousse,
Thaddeus Stevens
, p. 175.

Sumner costumed himself:
Blaine, vol. 2, p. 317; Brooks,
Washington in Lincoln’s Time
, pp. 32–33.

Though Sumner’s credentials:
Welles Diary, vol. 1, p. 502.

A Radical colleague:
Boutwell,
Sixty Years in Public Affairs
, vol. 2, p. 47.

When an old friend:
David Donald,
The Politics of Reconstruction, 1863–1867
, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1965, 1984), p. 25. The old acquaintance was Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the stirring words to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Her brother, Sam Ward, played a role in the impeachment trial, covered in chaps. 15 through 24.

Told that Sumner:
Alexander K. McClure,
Recollections of Half a Century
, Salem, MA: Salem Press Co. (1902), p. 96.

One Northerner exulted:
Mary Land, “Bluff Ben Wade’s New England Background,”
New England Quarterly
27:507 (1954);
Cong. Globe
, 34th Cong., 1st sess., 1304–6; John B. Ellis,
The Sights and Secrets of the National Capital: A Work Descriptive of Washington City in All Its Various Phases
, New York: United States Publishing Co. (1869), p. 124; H. L. Trefousse,
Benjamin Franklin Wade: Radical Republican from Ohio
, New York: Twayne Publishers Inc. (1963), p. 103; Land, “Ben Wade,” p. 160; Brooks,
Washington in Lincoln’s Time
, p. 34.

Facing “the onflowing torrent”:
Riddle, p. 244.

According to future President:
Ellis, p. 124; Blaine, vol. 1, p. 320; Julian,
Political Recollections
, pp. 356–57; Garfield to James Harrison Rhodes, May 7, 1868, in Theodore Clarke Smith,
Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield
, New Haven: Yale University Press (1925), vol. 1, p. 425.

In 1864, Wade’s frustration:
Land, “Ben Wade,” p. 163; Emily Edson Briggs,
The Olivia Letters
, New York: Neale Publishing Co. (1906), p. 66; William Frank Zornow, “‘Bluff Ben’ Wade in Lawrence, Kansas: The Issue of Class Conflict,”
Ohio Historical Quarterly
65:46 (1956); Foner, p. 335; ibid., p. 61. The reconstruction program in the Wade-Davis bill of 1864 was actually fairly mild; Thad Stevens abstained from voting on it because he thought it was too weak. Trefousse,
Thaddeus Stevens
, p. 149.

“That’s all that hell wants”: Chicago Tribune
, March 4, 1864; Schurz,
Reminiscences
, vol. 3, pp. 217–18; Brooks,
Men of Lincoln’s Time
, p. 35.

Sumner fired back:
Maunsell Field,
Memories of Many Men and of Some Women
, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Low & Searle (1874), p. 306; Schurz,
Reminiscences
, vol. 3, p. 218; Michael Les Benedict,
A Compromise of Principle, Congressional Republicans and Reconstruction, 1863–1869
, New York: W. W. Norton & Co. (1974), p. 39; Francis Fessenden,
Life and Public Services of William Pitt Fessenden
, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. (1907), vol. 2, p. 148;
Boston Advertiser
, August 30, 1867. Some accounts blame the enmity between Sumner and Fessenden for the nomination of Andrew Johnson for vice president in 1864. The accusation is circuitous, but not impossible. Sumner is supposed to have persuaded the Massachusetts delegation to abandon the renomination of Vice President Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, so that Hamlin would then oust Fessenden from the Senate. Hamlin, pp. 464–67. This was one of several explanations offered for Johnson’s nomination in 1864, an action that seemed so horrible to Republicans in retrospect that they searched for guilty parties to blame.

With his “cold, dry, severe manner”:
Brooks,
Men of Lincoln’s Time
, p. 34.

“Say what they will”:
Benedict,
Compromise of Principle
, p. 56, (Sen. Zach Chandler of Michigan, attacking Fessenden as “the Conservative Senator from Maine”); Fessenden, vol. 2, p. 12; Benedict,
Compromise of Principle
, p. 132. Stevens complained to the press about Fessenden’s gentle feelings toward the President. McPherson Papers, Box 12 (Article from
Meriden
[CT]
Recorder
, September 18, 1867).

With long fair hair:
Donald, p. 46; Staudenraus, ed., p. 109; Reid, p. 431.

Bingham also:
Erving E. Beauregard,
Bingham of the Hills: Politician and Diplomat Extraordinary
, New York: Peter Lang (1989), pp. 68, 83–84. As detailed by Beauregard, Bingham had a complex relationship with the Lincoln assassination. On his deathbed, the Ohio congressman claimed he experienced a vision, as Lincoln was being shot, of the tragic event. Ibid., p. 88. Also while on his deathbed, Bingham supposedly told his doctor that Mrs. Mary Suratt–one of the executed conspirators–had revealed to him and Secretary of War Stanton certain information “so shocking that its publication would threaten the Republic.” Bingham and Stanton agreed it should not be disclosed, and Stanton on his own deathbed made Bingham swear to preserve the confidence. Bingham took the secret to his grave with him, saying, “The truth must remain sealed.”

His lasting legacy:
Welles Diary, vol. 3, p. 274; Benjamin B. Kendrick,
The Journal of the Joint Committee of Fifteen on Reconstruction
, New York, (1914), p. 183; Richard L. Aynes, “The Continuing Importance of Congressman John A. Bingham and the Fourteenth Amendment,”
Akron Law Review
36:590 (2003).

One observer thought:
Brooks,
Washington in Lincoln’s Time
, pp. 108–9; Donald, pp. 68, 75; Benedict,
Compromise
, p. 36; Blaine, vol. 1, p. 328; Donald C. Swift, “John A. Bingham and Reconstruction: The Dilemma of a Moderate,”
Ohio History
(1968) 77:86–87.

“I always liked him for it”:
Undated memorandum to McPherson, McPherson Papers, Box 60; John Law to McPherson, January 23, 1869, ibid., Box 12; William D. Reed to McPherson, January 13, 1869, and E. G. Spaulding to McPherson, January 23, 1869, ibid., Box 60; “Interview with Benjamin Eggleston,” December 22, 1866, in
Johnson Papers
11:558.

Plain homes:
Riddle,
Recollections of War Times
, pp. 7–9.

For four years:
Ellis, pp. 50, 494. Ellis pithily summarized his view of the behavioral changes wrought by the war: “Honesty, both private and official, was thrown aside, and rascality took its place. Female virtue was at a discount.”

Government buildings:
Ellis, p. 55; George Alfred Townsend,
Washington, Outside and Inside
, Hartford, CT: James Betts & Co. (1873), p. 124.

Due to the limited hygienic resources:
Ellis, p. 111.

“Members of Congress”:
Donald,
The Politics of Reconstruction
, p. 54.

Near the Capitol: New York Sun
, October 25, 1896 (recollections of Gen. Daniel Sickles).

There is no record: Meriden
(CT)
Recorder
, September 18, 1867, in McPherson Papers, Box 12; Riddle,
Recollections of War Times
, p. 9. Korngold, p. 292, quoting
New York Tribune
; Scovel, p. 549; Harris, p. 580; Korngold, p. 66; Ellis, pp. 406–7. The game of faro was described as follows: “In front of the dealer is a table with a green cloth, upon which a number of cards are laid…. A pack of cards…is then placed in a patent silver case, and the dealer shuffles them out one by one upon the ‘lay out.’ A player deposits his stake upon a card, the Jack of diamonds, for instance. If the dealer…throws the corresponding Jack from the pack [on the lay out], the player wins from the bank; but if a different card falls upon it he loses his stake.” In a “first-class house, the shuffling is done fairly by the dealer.” Betting was done with “counters,” bought from the proprietor and cashed out promptly, because “the law forbids gambling for money, and if, in case of a descent by the police, no money is visible, it is hard to make a case against the proprietor and his friends.” Ellis, pp. 402–3.