Andrew and Eliza Johnson

AJ: The Turbulent Soul

Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) always ranks in the bottom of the POTUS class. It was not always so much what he did or did not do, but more what he “was” as a person.

Born in North Carolina to despair and poverty, his uneducated father was a porter at a wayside inn, fetching water, chopping wood, etc. His mother was a servant. The senior Johnson died when Andrew was two; his mother, with two toddlers to raise, remarried in due course. The stepfather was just as poor and uneducated as Johnson’s natural father. 

At ten, Andrew’s parents apprenticed the children to a local tailor. They could not afford to feed and clothe them, and considered it a kindness: assure the boys of a trade, so they could earn a living.   

No one would argue the truculent nature of Andrew Johnson. Various sources portray a) the harsh treatment by the tailor, and b) the belligerent apprentice, who attempted to run off several times. There is probably truth in both observations. 

Shortly before his 18th birthday (when his contract expired), AJ ran off again – this time to Tennessee, where the apprenticeship laws did not apply. 

The Political Rising of Johnson

Within a year, Johnson had settled in Greenville, TN, a modest working-class town. He married, opened a tailor shop, and joined the ranks of its citizenry. 

With help from his wife Eliza, who had a basic 3-R education, Andy learned to read, write and cipher. His tailoring business succeeded. By his early 20s, he participated regularly at town meetings. They made him an alderman. Then mayor. Then to the state legislature in Nashville, as a Democrat: the party of the working people. 

By 35, he was elected to Congress, and remained for more than a decade. The penniless boy now owned a 350 acre farm, a grist mill, and several lots in Greenville. Politics agreed with him. Granted he was never wildly popular or beloved, and had dozens of political adversaries. But he was bulldog-tenacious, and devoted to Greeneville – and Tennessee.

In the early 1850s, AJ purchased fifteen acres on the highest point in Greeneville, not far from the home he had recently built in town. It was a place to relax and meditate.

The Civil War and Afterwards

By the time the Civil War began, Andrew Johnson had been in politics for 30 years as a firm and dedicated Unionist. Period. Despite a decade of unrest in Tennessee (and elsewhere), he remained loyal to the USA. He was the only southern senator to remain in his seat when Tennessee seceded in 1861. As such, President Abraham Lincoln assigned the immovable Johnson to various posts (including Military Governor) in a bitterly divided Tennessee, challenging his administrative abilities and personal courage. The Senator did not disappoint. 

This service won him Lincoln’s personal recommendation as Vice President in 1864 – on the Union ticket. With the country perhaps more divided than it had been in 1860, the word “Republican” was anathema.

The ticket won, and thus began Andrew Johnson’s bitter years. He had been a lifelong Democrat, but was elected on a Union ticket that was actually Republican. Lincoln’s assassination created philosophical and political turmoil for the new “accidental” POTUS, and AJ’s bellicose nature did not help. He alienated just about everyone.

After three turbulent years, he missed impeachment by only one vote. After that, neither party even thought about nominating him for a term of his own. 

AJ: 1869 and Forward

Politics had been Andrew Johnson’s vocation for nearly 40 years. Once “retired,” he remarked that he had done his duty. Nevertheless, back in Tennessee he was bored, and his rambunctious soul needed outlets. During the next five years, he ran for and lost, elections to the Senate and the House of Representatives.

In 1875, he tried again for the Senate – and won. (NOTE: State Legislatures elected Senators at that time). 

The new Junior Senator from Tennessee returned to the Senate, took his oath, and was welcomed back. When he made a brief speech, he was deeply touched by a standing ovation. 

Then the Senate adjourned, and AJ returned to TN. A short time later, he had a stroke and died. 

The Burial…and the Cemetery

Andrew Johnson’s funeral was small, and according to his wishes, in the Masonic tradition. He had first joined the organization in 1843, and had become a Master Mason in 1851. Also, according to his wishes, he was interred on that hill near his home.

His wife Eliza died not long thereafter, and is buried there. In 1878, an impressive 27’ obelisk was erected by the family over Andrew and Eliza’s graves. Their sons, Robert and Charles, had predeceased their parents, and their remains were re-interred nearby. In due time, the Johnsons’ last remaining son and two daughters (Martha Patterson and Mary Stover) joined them. So did grandchildren – and even great-grandchildren. It was a family plot on a hillside until…

The Plot Thickens

Martha Johnson Patterson was the last surviving child of Andrew Johnson, and upon her death in 1901, she willed the burial land to the US government for use as a public memorial park dedicated to Johnson’s memory.

Administered by the War Department in 1906, it became The Andrew Johnson National Cemetery to honor US veterans of all wars. It is minuscule compared to the National Cemetery at Arlington or Gettysburg.

The first veteran was buried there in 1909. In 1939, there were 100 veterans.

From 1906 until 1942, the cemetery was under the jurisdiction of the War Department; the National Park Service took charge in 1942. In 2019, it was formally closed to new burials.

There are now 2000 headstones of veterans from the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, WW1, WW2, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Iraqi Freedom, and Afghanistan.

RIP.

Sources:

McKittrick, Eric L – Andrew Johnson: A Profile – Hill and Wang, 1969

Trefousse, Hans L. – Andrew Johnson: A Biography – W.W. Norton, 1989

https://millercenter.org/president/johnson

https://www.nps.gov/anjo/cemeteryhist.htm