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

by David O. Stewart

  The situation drove Navy Secretary Welles: Welles Diary, vol. 3, p. 289 (February 22, 1868); Smith, Grant, p. 453; The Chicago Tribune wrote, “Upon comparing notes…it appears that everyone was taken by surprise by the President’s action, not only the Republicans, but the Conservatives and Democrats, who are supposed to be in constant communication with Mr. Johnson.”

  The general-in-chief added: Thomas and Hyman, p. 585; Globe Supp., p. 137 (April 10, 1868) (testimony of Lorenzo Thomas).

  “Very well,” the president said: Townsend, p. 125; Globe Supp., p. 143 (April 10, 1868) (testimony of Lorenzo Thomas).

  The news struck “like a thunderbolt”: New York Times, February 22, 1868; New York Herald, February 22, 1868.

  Others sent messages: Thomas and Hyman, p. 585; New York Times, February 22, 1868; Baltimore Sun, February 22, 1868.

  Radicals Ben Butler, George Boutwell: New York Herald, February 22, 1868; Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 1329–30 (February 21, 1868); Baltimore Sun, February 22, 1868.

  “If you don’t kill the beast”: Clemenceau, pp. 153–54; New York Herald February 22, 1868.

  Political Washington: New York Times, February 22, 1868; Chicago Tribune, February 23, 1868; Baltimore Sun, February 22, 1868. Senator Fessenden of Maine thought that the Senate’s resolution on February 21 forced the House to impeach the president, making the Senate “responsible both as accuser and judge.” Fessenden, p. 204 (letter of May 3, 1868).

  By 3 A.M.: New York Herald, February 23, 1868; Chicago Tribune, February 23, 1868; Philadelphia Press, February 24, 1868.

  As one newspaper phrased it: Archives, Impeachment: Various House Papers (testimony of John F. Coyle, April 11, 1868); Globe Supp., p. 53 (testimony of J. W. Jones, keeper of the stationery of the Senate); ibid., p. 71 (April 1, 1868) (testimony of Walter Burleigh, delegate from the Dakota territories); ibid., p. 75 (April 1, 1868) (testimony of Samuel Wilkeson); Philadelphia Press, February 25, 1868.

  It was a false alarm: John M. Thayer, “A Night with Stanton in the War Office,” McClure’s 8:441–42 (March 1, 1897); New York Herald, February 24, 1868.

  “Either I am very stupid”: Fessenden, pp. 154–55.

  12. THE DAM BURSTS

  There was a widespread feeling: Schurz, Reminiscences, vol. 3, p. 252.

  Two local merchants: Chicago Tribune, February 23, 1868; Globe Supp., p. 140 (April 10, 1868) (testimony of Lorenzo Thomas). Thomas’s bail was provided by George B. Hall, a coachmaker in Washington, and Elias A. Eliason, a tanner in Georgetown. New York Times, February 23, 1868; Philadelphia Press, February 24, 1868.

  After reporting to the attorney general: Moore Diary/AJ, February 22 1868, pp. 95–96; Globe Supp., p. 140 (testimony of Lorenzo Thomas).

  Thomas: I shall act as Secretary of War: Townsend, pp. 126–27. Rep. Burt Van Horn from Niagara County, New York, was the scribe for the encounter. Also present in Stanton’s office were Gen. Charles Van Wyck and Rep. Freeman Clarke of New York, Rep. G. M. Dodge of Iowa, Rep. J. K. Moorhead and Rep. W. D. Kelley of Pennsylvania, Rep. Columbus Delano of Ohio, Rep. Thomas Perry of Michigan, and Secretary Stanton’s son, who served as his assistant.

  Pouring drinks: Globe Supp., pp. 140–41.

  In the coming days: Ibid., p. 141; New York Herald, February 23, 1868; Archives, Impeachment: Various House Papers, testimony of Lorenzo Thomas, pp. 10–11 (February 26, 1868).

  The spectacle smacked: The New York Herald observed on February 25 that the removal of “an obnoxious Cabinet Minister…has never been questioned [before], much less characterized as a ‘high crime and misdemeanor.’”

  Arriving in the midst: New York Herald, February 22 and 23, 1868; New York Times, February 22, 1868; New York Tribune, March 2, 1868; Chicago Tribune, February 28, 1868. The Baltimore Sun reported on February 22 that “habitués of the Capitol say that for years there has not been such excitement as that of to-day,” a remarkable judgment for a city that had endured four years of civil war that included several frights over possible assault by nearby Confederate armies.

  A number of congressmen: Chicago Tribune, February 25, 1868; New York Times, February 25, 1868; New York Herald, February 24, 1868; Baltimore Sun, February 26, 1868; Russ, p. 39; New York Times, February 28, 1868.

  The New York Herald reported: New York Herald, February 24, 1868.

  I hope you will quietly: New York Herald, February 24 and 25, 1868; Logan Family Papers, February 22, 1868. Many years later, while a judge in California, former Gen. N. P. Chipman confirmed that after receiving Logan’s note, he “organized the members of the Grand Army Posts and held them in readiness to rally at a signal in defense of Secretary Stanton or the Congress.” N. P. Chipman to Mary Logan, June 5, 1907, Logan Family Papers.

  That evening, a reporter: Mary Logan, Reminiscences of the Civil War and Reconstruction, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press (1970), p. 154; Illinois Daily State Journal, February 22, 1868; James Pickett Jones, John A. Logan, Stalwart Republican from Illinois, Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press (1982), pp. 21–22; Townsend, p. 129; New York Herald, February 22 and 24, 1868; The Independent, February 27, 1868.

  During the evening the President: New York Herald, February 26, 1868.

  Early in the crisis: Thayer, pp. 438, 441; New York Herald, February 24, 1868; Baltimore Sun, February 22, 1868.

  Soon the newspapers: New York Times, February 26, 1868; New York Herald, February 25, 1868.

  During an hour’s recess: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1336 (February 22, 1868). This narrative draws on the contemporaneous reports, published on February 23, 1868, in the New York Times, the New York Herald, and the Chicago Tribune.

  He settled back: Philadelphia Press, February 24, 1868; New York Times February 23, 1868; Chicago Tribune, February 23, 1868; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, February 24, 1868. Ten days later, another newspaper proclaimed that the impeachment effort, for Stevens, was “the fountain of youth” that allowed him to “muster and bluster about the House with the vigor and energy of fifty.” Cincinnati Commercial, March 5, 1868.

  He struck a threatening note: Philadelphia Press, February 24, 1868. Navy Secretary Welles thought that Democratic leaders “secretly desire the conviction and deposition of the President.” Welles Diary, vol. 3, p. 319, (March 23, 1868). Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 1336–37 (February 22, 1868).

  Third, that the Tenure of Office Act: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 1338–39 (February 22, 1868) (Rep. Brooks).

  A Tennessean won the prize: Globe Supp., p. 1342 (Rep. Bingham) (February 22, 1868); p. 1348 (Rep. Kelley) (February 22, 1868); p. 1391 (Rep. Clarke) (February 24, 1868). Globe App., p. 189 (Rep. Newcomb) (February 22, 1868); Globe App., p. 160 (Rep. Plants); Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1396 (Rep. Shanks); ibid. (Rep. Stokes).

  The Republicans were “blind with rage”: Globe App., p. 249 (Rep. Demas Barnes); Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1397 (Rep. Eldridge), p. 1353 (Rep. Phelps), p. 1349 (Rep. Beck) (February 22, 1868); Globe App., p. 164 (Rep. Kerr) (February 24, 1868), p. 195 (Rep. Golladay).

  Would troops march: Welles Diary, vol. 3, p. 289 (February 22, 1868).

  Assuring Johnson: Archives, Impeachment: Various House Papers, testimony of Gen. William Emory (February 26, 1868); Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., Supp., pp. 79–80; New York Times, February 24, 1868.

  Senator Ben Wade of Ohio: Chicago Tribune, February 23, 1868; Philadelphia Press, February 24, 1868; New York Herald, February 23 & 24, 1868.

  Johnson insisted that his course: Cowan, p. 11; New York Herald, February 22, 1868; Chicago Tribune, February 23, 1868; Philadelphia Press, February 24, 1868; Moore Diary, February 22, 1868, p. 98.

  The Senate never did take up: Moore Diary, February 22, 1868, p. 98; Philadelphia Press, February 24, 1868; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, February 24, 1868; Ward to Barlow, February 27, 1868, in Barlow Papers, Box 68. The Chicago Tribune reported on March 8 that the Senate Military Committee resolve
d not to act on the Ewing appointment until the impeachment proceedings were completed. Silvia Tsoldos, “The Political Career of Thomas Ewing, Sr.,” Ph.D. thesis, University of Delaware (1977), p. 298.

  One newspaper gushed: Lately Thomas, Sam Ward, “King of the Lobby,” Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. (1965), p. 342; Chicago Inter-Ocean, February 20, 1875. A correspondent described Ward as “pudgy as a neatly cooked dumpling.” San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, January 28, 1875; Chicago Tribune, May 29, 1868.

  One newspaper acknowledged: New York Times, October 11, 1868.

  Though this was surely good advice: New York Times, May 20, 1884; New York Tribune, May 20, 1884; New York World, May 20, 1884; Maude Howe Elliott, Uncle Sam Ward and His Circle, New York: The Macmillan Co. (1938), p. 489. Johnson quickly leaned toward retaining as his lawyers both Attorney General Henry Stanberry of Ohio and Jeremiah Black of Pennsylvania. New York Times, February 25, 1868. Black had served as attorney general in the last Democratic administration, that of James Buchanan, while Stanberry had been a Whig (precursor to the Republican Party). Stanberry also was a former law partner of Thomas Ewing, Sr., who served in the Cabinets of two Whig administrations and was one of Johnson’s few trusted advisers.

  Cherokee Chief John Ross: Craig Miner and William E. Unrau, The End of Indian Kansas, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press (2d ed., 1990), pp. 64–65; Annie Louise Abel, The American Indian and the End of the Confederacy, 1863–1866, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press (1993; originally 1925), pp. 70–71, 82–97, 280; John Ross to Johnson, June 28 1866, in Johnson Papers 10:634.

  To prove his dedication: Miner and Unrau, pp. 64–65; Report of Kansas Legislature Joint Committee to Investigate Senatorial Elections, February 24, 1872, excerpted in Daniel W. Wilder, Annals of Kansas, Topeka: Geo. W. Martin, Kansas Publishing House (1872), pp. 572–74; Report of the Joint Committee of Investigation, Appointed by the Kansas Legislature of 1872, Topeka, KS: S. S. Prouty, Public Printer (1872), pp. 195, 162, 243 253 (testimony that Perry Fuller paid as much as $40,000 to secure the election of Edmund G. Ross to the Senate); H. B. Denman to Thomas Ewing, Jr., January 12, 1868, Thomas Ewing Family Papers, Box 74; Chicago Tribune, September 1, 1868; Rea v. Missouri, 84 U.S. 532 (1873); Fuller to Johnson, December 30, 1867, in Johnson Papers 13:382–83; Daniel Voorhees to Johnson, January 24, 1868, ibid., pp. 494–95; Fuller to Johnson, January 25, 1868, ibid., pp. 495–96.

  Adjutant General Thomas: New York Times, February 24, 1868; Moore Diary/AJ, February 23, 1868, p. 99; Archives, Impeachment: Various House Papers, testimony of Lorenzo Thomas (February 26, 1868), p. 13.

  From ten in the morning: New York Herald, February 25, 1868; New York Times, February 25, 1868.

  They were choosing: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1400 (February 24, 1868).

  When the tally was announced: New York Herald, February 25, 1868.

  Stevens, Boutwell, and Bingham: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1402 (February 24, 1868).

  Not for several more days: Thomas and Hyman, pp. 595–96, citing the sergeant’s reminiscences in the New York Commercial Advertiser of March 24, 1903.

  “Make your calculations”: Ward to Barlow, February 25, 1868, in Barlow Papers, Box 68.

  13. THE WATERLOO STRUGGLE

  If he was impeached: Fessenden, vol. 2, p. 184 (March 31, 1868, letter to his cousin).

  The president, he intoned: J. W. Binckley, “The Leader of the House,” Galaxy 1:496 (July 1866); The Independent, February 27, 1868; Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1399 (February 24, 1868).

  The falling snow: Chicago Tribune, February 26, 1868; Briggs, p. 44; Ellis, pp. 92–93.

  Wade appointed a committee: New York Times, February 26, 1868; Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 1405–6 (February 25, 1868).

  Then Stevens lay down: Chicago Tribune, February 26, 1868; Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1421 (February 25, 1868); Boston Advertiser, February 26, 1868.

  The committee members braved: Chicago Tribune, February 25, 1868.

  Asked if he still despised: Baltimore Sun, February 26, 1868; New York Times, February 26, 1868; New York Times, February 26, 1868.

  [T]here was not a moment: Francis A. Richardson, “Recollections of a Washington Newspaper Correspondent,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C., 1903, pp. 24, 37.

  The facts, though: Archives, Impeachment: Various House Papers. Transcripts of testimony by General Emory and his second, Colonel George Wallace, appeared in the New York Herald on March 1, and the New York Times on March 2, 1868; New York Times, February 25, 1868.

  Looking thin and haggard: Beauregard, p. 126, quoting diary of Rep. George Julian, March 1, 1868, Indiana State Library, Indianapolis (March 1, 1868); Julian, p. 314. George Boutwell remembered that Stevens’s “health was much impaired, but his intellectual faculties were free from any cloud.” Boutwell, Reminiscences, vol. 2, p. 120.

  Reviving those claims: New York Times, February 28, 1868, and February 27, 1868.

  No one thought: New York Times, February 26 and 27, 1868.

  When Thomas called for his mail: New York Times, February 27, 1868; Townsend, p. 130; Thomas and Hyman, pp. 597–98.

  As the Radical Philadelphia Press: Philadelphia Press, March 2, 1868; New York Times, February 28, 1868; Gerry, p. 863.

  The case was destined: New York Times, February 28 and 29, 1868.

  As The Nation observed: The Nation 6:166 (February 27, 1868).

  Having many overlapping: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 1542–44 (February 29, 1868).

  That Emory’s testimony: During the debate, one New York Democrat found that the impeachment article based on General Emory’s testimony “is considered by all candid minds as amounting to nothing and the charges utterly frivolous.” Jerome Mushkat, “The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson: A Contemporary View,” New York History 48:278 (1967) (Rep. Pruyn’s diary, February 29, 1868).

  Boutwell betrayed no embarrassment: Storey to his father, March 3, 1868, in Howe, Portrait of an Independent, p. 77.

  A Democrat denounced: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1554 (Rep. Burr) (February 29, 1868); pp. 1554–55 (Rep. Morgan) (February 29, 1868); p. 1563 (Rep. Loughridge) (February 29, 1868); p. 1549 (Rep. Lawrence); pp. 1557–58 (Rep. Mullins); pp. 1553–54 (Rep. Stevens of New Hampshire); p. 1545 (Rep. Bromwell); p. 1544 (Rep. Burr) (February 29, 1868); p. 1563 (Rep. Kerr).

  The House then approved: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 1612–18 (March 2, 1868); Chicago Tribune, March 3, 1868. The seventh draft impeachment article was dropped. New York Times, March 2, 1868.

  On a second ballot: Chicago Tribune, March 2, 1868; New York Times, February 29, 1868.

  With his head set: New York Times, March 2, 1868; Chicago Tribune, March 2, 1868; Hans L. Trefousse, Ben Butler: The South Called Him BEAST!, New York: Twayne Publishers (1957), p. 18; George R. Agassiz, ed., Theodore Lyman, Meade’s Headquarters, 1864–1865, Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press (1922), p. 192.

  One war-derived nickname: Louis Taylor Merrill, “General Benjamin Butler in the Presidential Campaign of 1864,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 33:537 (March 1947); Trefousse, Ben Butler, pp. 111, 121, 154.

  Many, however, doubt: Benjamin F. Butler, Butler’s Book, Boston: A. M. Thayer & Co. (1892), pp. 633–35; Butler, “Vice Presidential Politics in ’64,” North American Review 151:331–35 (October 1885); Alexander McClure, Abraham Lincoln and Men of War Times, Philadelphia: Times Publishing Co. (1892), p. 118; Merrill (see the previous note). The doubters include Murray M. Horowitz, “Benjamin F. Butler: Seventeenth President,” Lincoln Herald 77:191 (1975), and Don E. Fehrenbacher, “The Making of a Myth: Lincoln and the Vice-Presidential Nomination in 1864,” Civil War History 41:273 (1992).,

  One Republican was not surprised: Blaine, vol. 2, p. 289.

  Thought by many: Benedict, Compromise, p. 35. Stevens took a distinctly astringent view of the cross-eyed congressman from Massachusetts, calling him “a false alarm, at onc
e superficial, weak and impracticable. Indeed, a ‘humbug.’” New York Herald, July 11, 1867; Brodie, p. 397 n. 43.

  Butler replied: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 1st sess., pp. 262–63 (March 21, 1867).

  Drawing on the rich store: Ibid., p. 364 (March 26, 1867).

  “I’ll be damned”: New York Herald, March 3, 1868.

  Because Bingham led: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 1619–20 (March 2, 1868); Boutwell, Reminiscences, p. 120; Benedict, Impeachment, pp. 113–14; Butler’s Book, p. 927.

  The full House was restrained: New York Times, March 4, 1868; Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 1639–42 (March 3, 1868); New York Times March 4, 1868.

  Even if there is no two-thirds majority: Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1642 (March 3, 1868); Washington Daily National Intelligencer, March 4, 1868; Trefousse, Impeachment, p. 138; Archives, Managers’ Journal. This pattern can be seen in the two impeachment articles voted against President Clinton in 1999, both of which mingled unrelated allegations of wrongdoing. The impeachment trial of Judge Halsted Ritter in 1936 vividly illustrates this dubious practice. Judge Ritter, who sat in the Southern District of Florida, faced six specific impeachment articles and a seventh catchall article that gathered together the allegations in the first six. The Senate acquitted him on the first six articles but convicted him on the last. Elizabeth B. Bazan, “Impeachment: An Overview of Constitutional Provisions, Procedure, and Practice,” Congressional Research Service, February 27, 1998, p. 25.

  Bingham read through: New York Herald, March 5, 1868; Philadelphia Press, March 5, 1868; Chicago Tribune, March 5, 1868; Cong. Globe, 40th Cong., 2d sess., pp. 1647–49 (March 4, 1868); Zion’s Herald, March 12, 1868.

  Johnson’s short remarks: Browning Diary, vol. 2, p. 183 (February 28, 1868); Blaine, vol. 2, p. 362; New York Herald, February 27, 1868.

  The president also consulted: New York Times, February 25, 1868.

  Three Republican senators: James Dixon of Connecticut, James Doolittle of Wisconsin, and Daniel Norton of Minnesota. Benedict, Impeachment, p. 127.