Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy
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Ah, he was too eager: Globe Supp., p. 319 (April 25, 1868).
His gaunt face: Washington Daily National Intelligencer, April 27, 1868; Cincinnati Commercial, April 29, 1868.
Stevens accepted: New York Times, April 28, 1868; Philadelphia Press, April 28, 1868.
If the president was unwilling: Globe Supp., pp. 322–33 (April 27, 1868).
Following the sepulchral: Globe Supp., pp. 324–35 (April 27 and 28, 1868); New York Times, April 30, 1868; New York Herald, April 28 and 29, 1868; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, April 29, 1868 (Williams, “having nothing to say, could not get through it in a single day”).
During a recess: New York Times, April 29, 1868; Howe, Portrait of an Independent, p. 116; Chicago Tribune, April 30, 1868.
Nelson scornfully answered: Globe Supp., p. 337 (April 28, 1868). Nelson’s words were: “So far as any question that [Butler] desires to make of a personal character with me is concerned, this is not the place to make it. Let him make it elsewhere if he desires to do it.” The New York Herald on April 29 described Nelson as “hinting at pistols,” while the Philadelphia Press on that day dismissed Nelson’s “characteristic plantation braggadocio.”
After their squall erupted: Philadelphia Press, May 1, 1868.
A slim figure: Barrows, p. 153.
As one observer noted: New York Herald, April 30, 1868.
Joined by Boutwell: Globe Supp., p. 348 (April 29, 1868); New York Times, April 29, 1868.
Evarts’s marathon performance: Globe Supp., pp. 357–59 (April 30, 1868); New York Herald, May 1, 1868; Philadelphia Press, April 30, 1868.
Stanberry made little contribution: Philadelphia Press, April 4, 1868; Globe Supp., pp. 378–79 (May 2, 1868).
Some onlookers: Philadelphia Press, May 6, 1868; Bingham to Lucy and Emma Bingham, February 26 and April 11, 1868, John Armor Bingham Papers, Morgan Library.
“Yesterday the supremacy”: Globe Supp., p. 379 (May 4, 1868).
He ranged far beyond: Cincinnati Gazette, May 8, 1868.
Chase directed that: Globe Supp., p. 406; Philadelphia Press, May 7, 1868; New York Herald, May 7, 1868; New York Times, May 7, 1868; New York World, May 7, 1868.
“God knows I have tried”: Chicago Tribune, May 9, 1868; Briggs, p. 81.
“We are not as strong”: Colfax to Young, April 16 and 28, 1868, Young Papers.
20. THE DARK MEN
We should go through: Butler to Young, May 12, 1868, Young Papers.
With the outcome uncertain: Archives, Managers’ Journal, p. 62 (May 5, 1868).
The hulking Weed: Perley’s Reminiscences, vol. 1, p. 59; Impeachment Managers’ Investigation, pp. 3–5; Impeachment Money, pp. 24–25.
Now Weed had assembled: Welles Diary, vol. 3, p. 345 (May 5, 1868). Postmaster General Randall attempted to deny he was in New York on May 5, but his denial was authoritatively contradicted. The secretary of the interior noted Randall’s absence from the May 5 Cabinet meeting, Browning Diary, vol. 2, p. 195 (May 5, 1868), while an aide to Randall telegraphed the Astor House that he and Randall would arrive there on the evening of May 4, which was confirmed by the hotel’s guest register. Impeachment Money, pp. 24–25.
Adams won election: Theodore H. Hittell, History of California, vol. 4, San Francisco: N. J. Stone & Co. (1898), p. 67.
In early 1851: Roger D. Hunt and Jack R. Brown, Brevet Brigadier Generals in Blue, Lake Monticello, VA: Olde Soldier Books (1998), p. 4; Hubert Bancroft, History of California, San Francisco: The History Co. (1888), vol. 6, p. 647 n. 11; Oroville Weekly Mercury, December 31, 1875. The records from the State Senate inquiry into Adams’s tax-collecting suggest he also backdated mining licenses in return for payments directly to him and a local sheriff. Alonzo Adams Papers, Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley; New York Times, July 22, 1856.
By war’s end: James H. Stevenson, A History of the First Volunteer Cavalry of the War Known as the First New York (Lincoln) Cavalry, Harrisburg, PA: Patriot Publishing Co. (1879), pp. 7, 24–26, 74–75, 117–18, 312, 352, 355–58; William H. Beach, The First New York (Lincoln) Cavalry from April 18, 1861 to July 7, 1865, New York: Lincoln Cavalry Association (1902), pp. 461–62.
Adams boasted: S. F. Norton to Benjamin Butler, May 26, 1868, in Butler Papers, Box 45.
Smythe, who himself: Smythe to “My Dear Colonel” (Col. Moore in the White House), April 17, 1868, in Butler Papers, Box 45 (pressing for appointment as minister to Austria).
Although Weed later said: Impeachment Money, p. 26.
As pay for supporting: Welles Diary, vol. 1, p. 155 (September 22, 1865); Summers, The Plundering Generation, pp. 112, 229, 268; Goodwin, pp. 70–71, 80–81.
He had long followed: Glyndon G. Van Deusen, “Thurlow Weed: A Character Study,” American Historical Review 48:427–31 (1944).
As chief federal revenue collector: HWAY.T5, Hearings Before the House Ways and Means Committee, January 23, 1868 (testimony of Mr. Bailey); HWAY.T6, Hearings Before the House Ways and Means Committee, March 12, 1868 (testimony of Col. Burr Porter).
He also served: New York Times, January 3, 1867; Impeachment Managers’ Investigation, pp. 3–7; James R. Doolittle to Johnson, December 3, 1868, in Johnson Papers 15:267.
For the impeachment trial: Van Deusen, p. 480; Chicago Tribune, May 29, 1868; New York Times, April 19, 1869, November 3, 1870; Johnson Papers 15:501 n. 1.
To support his taste: Impeachment Money, p. 3.
Through long careers: E.g., Samuel Ward to Thurlow Weed, July 20, 1865; Erastus Webster to Weed, June 30, 1864; Cornelius Wendell to Weed, October 15, 1865; Wendell to Weed, August 2, 1867, all in Thurlow Weed Papers, Box 1; Chicago Tribune, May 29, 1868 (Ward and Webster are “fast friend[s]”).
Webster joined Woolley: Impeachment Money, p. 25.
Hastings was needed: Impeachment Managers’ Investigation, pp. 4, 6.
“My business is adjusted”: Impeachment Managers’ Investigation, p. 9.
“He will do it”: Impeachment Managers’ Investigation, pp. 6–7.
At the same moment: Impeachment Money, pp. 24, 27. The Wall Street operator was S. Taylor Suit, who opened a bank in Virginia after the war, and for whom the city of Suitland, Maryland, is named.
Still, possession of the letter: Moore Diary/Large Diary, pp. 28–29, 36 (May 2, 1868, May 9, 1868). Among the many perplexing features of the Pomeroy-Legate letter of April 1867 is that it fell into the possession of Cornelius Wendell, the former superintendent of public printing who advised Johnson’s supporters on corrupt ways to secure an acquittal. Postmaster General Randall testified that Wendell showed him the Pomeroy-Legate letter but refused to allow Randall to keep the original. Impeachment Money, p. 11. How Wendell acquired the latter is not known.
Smythe’s account: Moore Diary/Large Diary, p. 26 (April 30, 1868).
Because the letters: Moore Diary/Large Diary, p. 28 (May 1, 1868).
Gaylord still offered: Fuller letter to New York World, July 29, 1868, in Thomas Ewing Family Papers, Box 251; Impeachment Money, p. 8.
Indeed, after his initial flirtation: Kansas Patriot (Burlington, KS), June 20, 1868 (letter of Henry C. Whitney to S. S. Prouty); Eugene Berwanger, “Ross and the Impeachment: A New Look at a Critical Vote,” Kansas History 1:239–40 (1978).
Shortly thereafter: New York World, May 25, 1868; Washington National Daily Intelligencer, May 22, 1868; Moore Diary/Large Diary, January 8, 1870, p. 82; Legate Testimony, May 22, 1868, before Impeachment Investigation Committee, pp. 35, 38, Butler Papers, Box 175.
After a day of anxiety: Impeachment Managers’ Investigation, pp. 4, 7; Impeachment Money, pp. 26, 34.
The president’s lawyers: Barlow to Ward, May 9, 1868, in Barlow Papers, Box 64. This was confirmed by testimony before the Impeachment Committee. Impeachment Money, p. 13.
At the trial’s end: Impeachment Money, p. 13; Richard Schell to Seward, March 16 and April 2, 1868, Seward Papers. Stanberry acted as paymaster for the defense lawyers, as reflected in his dep
osit records with Riggs & Co., a bank, which are currently housed at George Washington University. PNC-Riggs National Bank Records, Ledger 185, Riggs & Co. (1866–68). Stanberry’s ledger sheet reflecting the payments to the other lawyers is preserved in Evarts’s papers at the Library of Congress.
“Raising money for the President’s counsel”: Impeachment Money, pp. 14, 46.
He may have wondered: Cincinnati Daily Gazette, December 20, 1869; George Wilkes to Butler, May 23, 1868, in Butler Papers, Box 45.
21. SCRAMBLING FOR VOTES
There is much the same feeling: Garfield to Rhodes, April 28, 1868, in Smith, Life and Letters of James Abram Garfield, vol. 1, p. 425.
The impeachers met: New York Herald, May 10, 1868. After seeing Ben Butler with New York Republican Senator Roscoe Conkling together in late April, Navy Secretary Welles called it an “ominous and discreditable conjunction.” Welles Diary, vol. 3, p. 336 (April 22, 1868).
More Republican officials: New York Herald, April 19, 1868.
According to some: New York Herald, May 5, 1868.
He asked Stevens: Greeley to Stevens, April 20, 1868, in Stevens Papers, Box 4.
Senator Fessenden of Maine: Fessenden, p. 205 (May 3, 1868).
If he went the other way: Morrill to Fessenden, May 10, 1868, in Fessenden, p. 206.
Anti-Johnson forces: New York Herald, May 9, 1868.
He visited the Indiana Avenue home: Badeau, p. 136.
Henderson later recalled: John S. Henderson, “Emancipation and Impeachment,” Century (December 1912), p. 207; Simpson, p. 244.
Senators who feared: New York Herald, May 10, 1868; Moore Diary/Large Diary, p. 32 (May 6, 1868); Chicago Tribune, May 12, 1868; Ellis, p. 158.
Plans went forward: Philadelphia Press, May 9, 1868.
“The gathering of evil birds”: Horace White to Elihu Washburne, May 1, 1868, in Washburne Papers, vol. 59; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, May 9, 1868; New York Times, May 11, 1868.
Two Union generals: Leavenworth (KS) Daily Times, May 10, 1868; New York Times, May 11, 1868.
If Johnson had to leave: New York Times, May 12, 1868, reprinting interview from the Boston Post, dated May 10, 1868. Warden’s overlapping employments—some might call them conflicting—were well known at the time. Ritchie, pp. 80–81; Summers, The Press Gang, p. 102.
Though he liked: New York World, May 15, 1868.
The atmosphere mingled: New York Herald, May 12, 1868.
Ever partisan: New York Times, May 14, 1868.
Charles Woolley, the Whiskey Ring lawyer: Woolley to Benjamin Robinson, May 11, 1868, in Impeachment Money, p. 47.
Predictions about: Democratic lawyer Samuel Barlow, following the drama from New York, rode this roller-coaster of emotions. On May 6, he wrote Sam Ward, “I am afraid you are over sanguine as to the President’s acquittal as I find the friends of the impeachers are as sanguine as ever. Don’t bet too heavily on the result unless you have better means of knowledge.” The next day, he wrote to Jerome Stillson, correspondent for the New York World: “I still fear your wishes are the foundation for the opinion that there will be no conviction, as I find today that the impeachers’ friends here are as earnest as ever in their assertions as to the result. Day before yesterday they were scared—but they are again confident.” One day later, Barlow confided to Ward, he met a Radical Republican who was brimming with optimism and “offered large bets” on the verdict, “which I did not take.” Barlow Papers, Box 64.
By May 11: Moore Diary/Large Diary, p. 35 (May 9, 1868).
But Sherman also said: New York Times, May 12, 1868; Roger D. Bridges, “John Sherman and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson,” Ohio History 82:178 (1973).
Maddeningly, time expired: Chicago Tribune, May 12, 1868; New York Herald, May 12, 1868; Philadelphia Press, May 12, 1868.
Another described the experience: Julian, p. 316; Baltimore Sun, May 12, 1868.
Bingham talked with friends: Storey to Susan Storey, May 14, 1868, in Howe, Portrait of an Independent, p. 105; New York Herald, May 12, 1868.
Even doubtfuls who opposed: New York Times, May 12, 1868.
On May 7, the managers: Archives, Managers’ Journal, p. 64 (May 7, 1868); Philadelphia Press, May 8, 1868.
The separate allegations: Globe Supp., p. 409 (May 11, 1868).
For the big day: Impeachment Managers’ Investigation, p. 9; Impeachment Money, p. 27.
Smelling presidential victory: New York Herald, May 12, 1868.
Those seeking to remove him: Baltimore Sun, May 11, 1868; New York Times, May 12, 1868.
Some slept not at all: New York Herald, May 13, 1868.
At 5 A.M.: William King to Washburne, May 12, 1868, in Washburne Papers, vol. 59; New York Times, May 13, 1868.
Henderson’s vote: New York Herald, May 13, 1868; New York Times, May 13, 1868; Impeachment Money, pp. 15–16.
Not able to spare: Globe Supp., pp. 409–10 (May 11 and 12, 1868).
Deflated, the murmuring spectators: New York World, May 13, 1868.
The impeachment clauses: Farrand 2:65 (July 20, 1787).
Within weeks those states: Chicago Tribune, May 13, 1868.
Western Union: Petersburg (VA) Index, May 12, 1868 (reprinting from the Baltimore Sun); New York Herald, May 12, 1868.
22. DESPERATE DAYS
Have been the rounds: Impeachment Money, p. 28.
Before Saturday: New York Times, May 12, 13, and 14, 1868; Philadelphia Press, May 13, 1868.
A “perfect avalanche”: Baltimore Sun, May 13, 1868.
The Philadelphia Press applauded: Philadelphia Press, May 14, 1868.
A pro-Johnson newspaper: Ibid.; W. G. Brownlow to Butler, June 29, 1868, Butler Papers; Impeachment Money, p. 29; Durham, pp. 48, 55; New York Herald, May 14, 1868. Ben Butler claimed that Fowler had been hot for impeachment as early as 1866. Cincinnati Gazette, June 22, 1866.
The impeachers gave up: New York Times, May 15, 1868; New York Herald, May 15, 1868.
Before the final ballot: Wheeling Intelligencer, March 16, 1868; Philip Sturm, “Senator Peter G. Van Winkle and the Andrew Johnson Impeachment Trial: A Comprehensive View,” West Virginia History 58:39 (1999–2000); R. W. Bayless, “Peter G. Van Winkle and Waitman T. Willey in the Impeachment Trial of Andrew Johnson,” West Virginia History 13:83 (1952); Philadelphia Press, May 13, 1868; New York Times, May 14, 1868 (Van Winkle may vote “guilty” on Article XI); New York Times, May 15, 1868 (for acquittal on all articles); Cleveland Daily Herald, June 5, 1868 (Chase persuaded Van Winkle to vote for acquittal).
Henderson often voted: Chicago Tribune, January 21, 1862; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, April 21, 1866; Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, November 1, 1865; Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, November 1, 1867; Newark (OH) Advocate, September 27, 1867; Savannah (GA) Daily News and Herald, June 22, 1867.
“The vote of Henderson”: Welles Diary, vol. 3, p. 349, May 8, 1868; Arthur Mattingly, Senator John Brooks Henderson, U.S. Senator from Missouri, Ph.D. dissertation, Kansas State University (1971), p. 136. One account has Mary Foote visiting Washington as a young woman “to see a real senator, and what capital parties were like.” Evidently, John Henderson looked like a real senator, as she set her sights on the Missouri senator early in her visit. Washington Post, December 30, 2000, p. 12.
In May 1868: Legate Testimony of May 22, 1868, before the Impeachment Investigation Committee, p. 43 in Butler Papers; Craig to James F. Joy (March 17, 1867), and Craig to Joy (April 10, 1868), Joy Collection; Paul Wallace Gates, Fifty Million Acres: Conflicts Over Kansas Land Policy 1854–1890, University of Oklahoma Press (1997), pp. 156–65; Miner and Unrau, pp. 117–19; Lula Lemon Brown, Cherokee Neutral Lands Controversy, M.A. thesis, Kansas State Teachers College (1930), pp. 6–10.
“The Henderson matter”: Impeachment Money, pp. 16–17.
He promised to “throw myself…”: New York Times, May 14, 1868; Cox, p. 594; Warden, p. 696; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, May 16, 1868.
Possibly
someone pointed out: Moore Diary/Large Diary, pp. 83–84 (January 6, 1870); New York World, May 19, 1868; Moore Diary/Large Diary, p. 44 (June 8, 1868); New York Times, May 15, 1868; New York Herald, May 14, 1868; New York Tribune, May 15, 1868.
When the war came: Edward Bumgardner, The Life of Edmund G. Ross, the Man Whose Vote Saved a President, Kansas City, MO: Fielding-Turner Press (1949), pp. 15–51; Earl C. Kubicek, “Pioneer, Soldier, and Statesman: The Story of Edmund Gibson Ross,” Lincoln Herald (Fall 1982), pp. 147–48.
Ross was not charged: G. Raymond Gaeddert, The Birth of Kansas, Philadelphia: Porcupine Press (1974), pp. 176–77.
Ten days later: Leverett Wilson Spring, Kansas: The prelude to the war for the Union, Boston: Houghton Mifflin & Co. (1885), pp. 300–303; Kendall E. Bailes, Rider on the Wind: Jim Lane and Kansas, Shawnee Mission, KS: Wagon Wheel Press (1962), p. 205; Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and Letters of John Hay, New York: Da Capo Press (1988), p. 289.
For $42,000 in bribes: Mark A. Plummer, “Governor Crawford’s Appointment of Edmund G. Ross to the United States Senate,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 28:145 (1962). The 1873 investigation of this bribery is outlined in Daniel W. Wilder, The Annals of Kansas, Topeka, KS: George W. Martin, Kansas Publishing House (1875), pp. 570–74.
Ben Wade also sponsored: Ross to Wyman Spooner, January 15, 1868, Ross to Ream, February 24, 1868, and Wade to Fairchild, February 11, 1868, in Hoxie-Ream Papers; Vinnie Ream to Stevens, April 3 and July 21, 1868, and Simon Stevens to Ream, March 19, 1868, all in Stevens Papers, Box 4; Edward S. Cooper, Vinnie Ream: An American Sculptor, Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers (2004), p. 59. “She just talked pretty, girlish talk to some of these impotent iron-clad old politicians—Congressmen, of course,” wrote Samuel Clemens as Mark Twain, “and got out her mud and made busts of some of the others; and she kept on in this fashion until she over-mastered them all with her charming little ways.” Chicago Republican, February 19, 1868.
To complete the circle: Cooper, pp. 17–42. A former Democratic congressman from Indiana, Daniel Voorhees, had urged Johnson to appoint Robert Ream as a consul to a city in southern Europe so he could accompany his daughter Vinnie to Rome, where she wished to complete her commission for a sculpture of Lincoln. The president did not make the appointment. Voorhees to Johnson, May 13, 1867, in Johnson Papers 12:266.