The Impeachers

by Brenda Wineapple

  “Thank you, my good fellows”: see Schurz, Reminiscences, p. 214.

  “I hold him to have been”: Taylor, Destruction and Reconstruction, p. 330.

  “but he either does all the talking himself”: quoted in Howe, Moorfield Storey, p. 60.

  “I have outlived”: quoted in Julia Ward Howe, Reminiscences, p. 174.

  “never in this, or any other country”: Lydia Maria Child to [SBG] [1866], Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection, Cornell University.

  He arranged his luxuriant dark hair with deliberate carelessness, and while: “Thaddeus Stevens: On Sumner’s dress,” see Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time, p. 24.

  “If one told Charles Sumner”: quoted in Schurz, Charles Sumner: An Essay by Carl Schurz, p. 15; for Puritan idealist, see p. 25.

  “The Great Impotent.”: see Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man, p. 314.

  “Liberty has been won”: The Works of Charles Sumner, vol. 9, p. 427.

  “Ignorant, pig-headed and perverse”: quoted in Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man, p. 238.

  “whitewashing message,”: CG 39: 1, Dec. 19, 1865, 79.

  “If you are not ready to be the Moses”: CG 39, 1, Dec. 20, 1865, p. 95.

  “What’s the use to give us our freedom,”: “The Feelings of the Southern Negroes,” The Nation, Sept. 28, 1865, p. 393.

  In South Carolina there was a rumor that: see Charles Howard to OOH, Nov. 16, 1865, Bowdoin.

  “Shouldn’t we resist”: Dec. 3, 1865, Testimony Taken Before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, Thirty-ninth and Fortieth Congress (1867), p. 94.

  General Howard tried to hedge: see William H. Trescot to OOH, Dec. 4, 1865, Bowdoin.

  “Could a just government”: Rufus Saxton to OOH, Aug. 22, 1865, vol. 9, BRFAL.

  “without a hut to shelter them or a cent”: CG 39: 1, Dec. 18, 1865, p. 74.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: RECONCILIATION

  On New Year’s Day 1866: see D.W.B. [David W. Bartlett], “Washington Correspondence,” The Independent, Jan. 4, 1866, p. 1.

  “we are plain people”: quoted in Ames, Ten Years in Washington, p. 245. See also Evening Star (Washington), January 1, 1866, p. 2, for one of the many chronicles of the New Year’s Day White House celebration.

  Very few did: “The Latest News by Telegraph. News from Washington,” The Daily Age [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania], p. 1.

  “He would have enjoyed the day,”: Jan. 1, 1866, Welles, Diary, vol. 2, p. 409.

  Socialites: see Briggs, The Olivia Letters, p. 4.

  “Washington”: Ellet, The Court Circles of the Republic, p. 550.

  “for the transactions,”: Taylor, Destruction and Reconstruction, p. 325.

  “cases of the worst and most incurable wounds”: Whitman, Memoranda During the War, p. 54; 55.

  “The spectacle of sudden loss”: Gerry, ed., Through Five Administrations, p. 91.

  “You will see how our cause”: Josephine Griffing to Elizabeth Buffum Chace, Dec. 26, 1865, in Wyman and Wyman, Elizabeth Buffum Chace, p. 285.

  “tardy, cold, dull, and indifferent…determined.”: Philip Foner, ed., Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings, p. 621.

  “but it was too late”: Douglass, “The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass,” in Autobiographies, p. 802.

  “Those d—d…throat than not.”: quoted in Philip Ripley to Manton Marble, Feb. 8, [1866], Manton Marble Papers, LC.

  “for no other cause”: “President Johnson and the Black Delegation,” New York Herald, Feb. 9, 1866, p. 4.

  “Peace is not to be secured”: “Presidential Declarations,” The Independent, Feb. 15, 1866, p. 8.

  “after the demoralizing”: “Negros and Negro Agitators,” New York Herald, Feb. 12, 1866, p. 4.

  “ashamed of belonging to the white race!”: quoted in D.W.B., “Washington Correspondence, The Independent, Feb 15, 1866, p. 1.

  “freaky”: Feb. 13, 1866, Welles, Diary, vol. 2, p. 435. See also Cullom, Fifty Years of Public Service, p. 42.

  “We, the Republicans”: quoted in Litwack, North of Slavery, p. 269.

  “that all men are created equal.”: CG 36: 1, Dec. 12, 1859, p. 102.

  “Pass it”: quoted in Willard Saxton diary, Feb. 10, 1866, Yale.

  If the freedpeople or refugees could not afford to rent: see CG 39: 1, Feb. 5, 1866, p. 658.

  “doing nothing to support themselves”: CG 39: 1, Jan. 23, 1866, p. 361.

  “for the purpose of degrading”: CG 39: 1, Jan. 19, 1866, p. 322.

  White House clerks: see Philip Ripley to Manton Marble, Feb. 8, [1866], Manton Marble papers, LC.

  “I thought in advocating it”: CG 39: 1, Feb. 20, 1866, p. 943.

  “veto one bill upon that ground”: CG 39: 1, Feb. 23, 1866, p. 986.

  “The President has sold us out”: John I. Davenport to Sidney Gay, Feb. 22, 1866, Butler.

  “has gone all over to the South.”: Willard Saxton, diary, Feb. 22, 1866, Yale.

  “the news of the Veto Message”: quoted in McKitrick, Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction, p. 290.

  “The South and the Government are in the same boat”: Reid, After the War, 575; see also “Veto of the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill,” Daily Courier [Louisville, KY] Feb. 21, 1866, p. 1.

  “Oh dear, we are all fagged”: “The Rip Van Winkles at Cooper Union,” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 24, 1866, p. 2.

  By marginalizing: see William Henry Trescot to James Orr, Feb. 28, 1866, SCA. See also Benjamin Rush to Andrew Johnson, Feb. 3, 1866, PAJ 10: 22, and John Cochrane to AJ, Feb. 4, 1866, PAJ 10: 27.

  “laborious and thankless,”: see McCulloch, Men and Measures, p. 193.

  These traitors: see also Welles, Diary, vol. 2, Feb. 13, 1866, p. 432.

  “If my blood”: all quotations from the speech are from Feb. 1866, PAJ 10, p. 152ff.

  “Imagine it!!!!!”: Feb. 3, 1866, Strong, Diary, vol. 4, p. 72.

  “in undertaking to reconstruct states”: William Lloyd Garrison, “The Verdict of the People,” The Independent, March 29, 1866, p. 1.

  If the President: see John I. Davenport to Sydney Gay, Feb. 22, 1866, Butler.

  “The long agony,”: WPF to Elizabeth F. Warriner, Feb. 25, 1866, Bowdoin.

  “their mistakes, their evil cause”: Norwood, p. 540.

  Whitman’s friend the essayist: see Burroughs, “Whitman and His Drum-Taps,” p. 611.

  “I was struck”: Barrus, ed. The Life and Letters of John Burroughs, vol. 1, pp. 96–97.

  “looking old and young”: Barrus, ed. The Life and Letters of John Burroughs, vol. 1, pp. 96–97.

  “So far from spoiling the symmetry of the book”: “Literary Notices,” New York Herald, Sept. 3, 1866, p. 5.

  At The New York Times: see “Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War,” New York Times, Aug. 27, 1866, p. 2.

  “ ‘Something,’ says this happy optimist”: “Book Table,” The Independent, Jan. 10, 1867, p. 2.

  “Everybody is heartily tired of discussing [the Negro’s] rights,”: [E. l. Godkin] The Nation, July 6, 1865, p. 1.

  CHAPTER EIGHT: CIVIL RIGHTS

  “The thing itself”: Henry Ward Beecher to AJ, March 17, 1866, PAJ 10: 264.

  “It will be well”: Jacob D. Cox to AJ, March 22, 1866, PAJ 10: 287.

  Even Wendell Phillips: see “The Civil Rights Bill,” National Anti-Slavery Standard, April 14, 1866, p. 2.

  “find a way”: quoted in Cox and Cox, Politics, Principle, and Prejudice, 1865–1866, p. 197.

  “Sir, I am right”: quoted in W. G. Moore, “Small Diary,” [nd] 1866, LC.

  “Fraught with evil”: PAJ 10: 319 ff.

  “so clearly right”: John Sherman to WTS, April 23, 1866, The Sherman Let
ters, ed. Rachel Thorndike, p. 270.

  “I am forced to the conclusion”: Henry Dawes to Electa Dawes, March 31, 1866, LC.

  “The President probably did not know”: William Cullen Bryant to Fanny Godkin Bryant, April 17, 1866, The Letters of William Cullen Bryant, p. 89.

  “It [Congress] grows firmer every day”: Schuyler Colfax to Kline Shryock, April 7, 1866, Brown University.

  “fresh from the rebel congress”: see CG 39: 1, April 4, 1866, p. 1756.

  “an argument to excite prejudice—”: CG 39: 1, April 4, 1866, p. 1757.

  “even Charles Sumner,”: M.C.A. [Mary Clemmer Ames], “A Woman in Washington,” The Independent, April 19, 1866, p. 1.

  “The people have made too many”: G. S. Orth to Stephen Neal, April 29, 1866, quoted in McKitrick, Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction, p. 325.

  “He is fool enough or wicked enough”: Henry Dawes to Electa Dawes, March 31, 1866, LC.

  “What a pity he had not stuck to making trousers,”: quoted in Lydia Maria Child to [my dear friend], April 1, 1866, Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection, Cornell.

  “with a plebeian tone of mind,”: James Russell Lowell, “The President on the Stump,” p. 531; E. P. Whipple, “The President and Congress,” pp. 500–01.

  the conservative press in Memphis: see Memphis Daily Avalanche, April 1, 1866, p. 1; see also; March 20, p. 2; March 28, 1866, p. 2; April 11, 1866, p. 2.

  “Your old father, Abe Lincoln, is dead and damned”: “The Memphis Riots,” in The Reports of the Committees of the House of Representatives 1865–1866, vol. 3, p. 7; 182; subsequent references to this volume on the Memphis riot will appear as “Memphis Riots,” Report, followed by the page number. Most of the accounts are taken from this report.

  In the confusion, one police officer was killed: see “Memphis Riots,” Report, p. 8.

  “Boys, I want you to go ahead…city”: “Memphis Riots,” Report, p. 24.

  John Prendergast: see “Memphis Riots,” Report, pp. 308, 317, 343–44.

  “I have shot”: “Memphis Riots,” Report, p. 8.

  “Halt, you damned nigger,”: “Memphis Riots,” Report, p. 101.

  The others raped: “Memphis Riots,” Report, pp. 196–7.

  “Gentlemen,”: “Memphis Riots,” Report, p. 199.

  Her clothes were on fire: “Memphis Riots,” Report, p. 15.

  “Colored men, women”: Reverend Ewing Tade, “The Memphis Race Riot and Its Aftermath, Report by a Northern Missionary,” p. 66.

  Barbers were gunned: see Brown, The Negro in the American Rebellion, p. 349–350.

  A cheer went up: Ibid., p. 350.

  “it was no negro riot,”: Elihu Washburne to Thaddeus Stevens, May 24, 1866, LC.

  “The civil-rights bill is treated as a dead letter,”: Ibid.

  “negro-worshippers”: for a summary view, see Carrière, “An Irresponsible Press: Memphis Newspaper and the 1866 Riot,” pp. 2–15. See also “The Horrors of Memphis,” The Independent, May 31, 1866, p. 2.

  CHAPTER NINE: MUTUAL CONCESSIONS, MUTUAL HOSTILITIES

  “Johnson is suspicious of every one,”: John Sherman to WTS, March 20, 1866, LC.

  “If Andrew Johnson”: “Mrs. Swisshelm Guillotined,” Chicago Tribune, March 2, 1866, p. 2.

  Jane Grey Swisshelm was sacked: see also “Mrs. Swisshelm’s New Paper,” Chicago Tribune, Dec. 26, 1865, p. 1.

  “liberty is in danger of betrayal.”: “Prospectus,” The Reconstructionist, February 10, 1866, p. 4.

  “His ambition was and is”: “Gone Back,” The Reconstructionist, February 10, 1866, p. 1.

  “Sumter guns”: quoted in “Mrs. Swisshelm’s Dismissal,” Chicago Tribune, March 3, 1866, p. 2. See also Hoffert, Jane Grey Swisshelm: An Unconventional Life, p. 128, although she says that Swisshelm’s satires and attacks “against Johnson began to verge on the hysterical.”

  “An enemy so reckless is not one to be defied,”: “To the Editor of the NY Tribune,” New-York Tribune, March 29, 1865, p. 10.

  Thirty years earlier: as a female scourge, see “Mrs. Swisshelm in Trouble,” Detroit Free Press, March 4, 1866, p. 2.

  Flamboyant during the war: for General George Armstrong Custer testimony, see “Testimony of General George Armstrong Custer,” March 10, 1866, Report of the Committee on Reconstruction, pp. 73–76.

  Madison Newby: Testimony of Madison Newby, Feb. 3, 1866, Report of the Committee on Reconstruction, p. 55.

  “by the dinners”: Trowbridge, A Picture of the Desolate South, p. 181.

  “Quite a number of negroes”: David Roberts to Elihu Washburne, May 7, 1866, LC.

  “accomplish by law and Legislation”: and “we have no peace,” Marion Roberts to Thaddeus Stevens, May 15, 1866, LC.

  “To those who say they”: Henry Winter Davis to unknown “Sir,” May 27, 1865; published publically for the first time by the Sacramento Daily Union, April 13, 1866, and collected in Davis, Speeches and Addresses, p. 562.

  This would hurt the South: As David Donald points out, despite Sumner’s ringing rhetoric, Sumner had earlier suggested an amendment very much like the amendment he was trying to kill because it had been denounced in his home state of Massachusetts.

  “slaughtered by a puerile and pedantic criticism”: CG 39; 1, May 8, 1866, p. 2459.

  “The only ground of his opposition”: WPF to Lizabeth Fessenden Warriner, March 10, 1866, Bowdoin.

  “Sumner is not only a fool but a malignant fool,”: Charles Eliot Norton to E. L. Godkin, March 6, 1866, HU.

  “Sumner receives”: Charles Eliot Norton to E. L. Godkin, March 20, 1866, HU.

  “our friends”: Elihu Washburne to Adele Washburne,: March 11, 1866, LC.

  Norton urged the editor: see The Nation, March 22, 1866, p. 358 ff.

  “If the South have to choose”: Lydia Maria Child to Sarah Shaw, [1866], Samuel B. May Anti-Slavery Collection, Cornell.

  “the oligarchy doesn’t care”: Thomas J. Durant to HCW, Jan. 20, 1866, SHC.

  “odd contraption,”: McKitrick, Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction, p. 326. For the complicated origin of the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as its treatment by historians, see the superb overview by McKitrick, pp. 326–63; see also Eric Foner’s classic Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution and Garret Epps, Democracy Reborn, to name just a few of the salient sources.

  “fatal and total surrender,”: Wendell Phillips to Thaddeus Stevens, April 30, 1866, LC.

  “We were each compelled to surrender”: James Grimes to his wife, April 16, 1866, quoted in Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes, p. 292.

  “I would not for a moment…despair.”: CG 39: 1, May 8, 1866, p. 2459.

  “In my youth…hostilities.”: see CG 39: 1 June 13, 1866, p. 3148.

  Governor Wells and Fullerton: see Thomas Durant to HCW, Jan. 13, 1866, SHC.

  “The Governor has become”: C. W. Stauffer to HCW, Feb. 6, 1866, SHC.

  “He intended”: Diary of HCW, March 28, 1866, SHC.

  “it is our general belief”: quoted in Joe Gray Taylor, “New Orleans and Reconstruction,” p. 195. For the narration of the New Orleans riots, I have also drawn on Wineapple, Ecstatic Nation, pp. 412–44.

  “harmless pleasantry,”: see Absalom Baird to John T. Monroe, July 26, 1866, quoted in Report of the Select Committee in the New Orleans Riots (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1867), p. 56.

  According to Henry Warmoth: Diary of Henry C. Warmoth, July 30, 1866, SHC.

  “military will be expected”: AJ to Albert Voorhies and Andrew S. Herron, quoted in McKitrick, Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction, pp. 423–24. For an overview of the New Orleans riot of 1866, see Reynolds, “The New Orleans Riot of 1866, Reconsidered,” pp. 5–27, and Hogue, Uncivil War: Five New Orleans Street Batt
les and the Rise and Fall of Radical Reconstruction.

  “call on Genl. Sheridan”: AJ to Andrew Herron, July 30, 1866, PAJ 10: 760.

  That day, by noon: see Wineapple, Ecstatic Nation, pp. 412–44, from which the following paragraphs have been taken.

  “several negroes lying dead”: Report of the Select Committee in the New Orleans, p. 16. Unless otherwise noted, all subsequent direct quotes about the riot have been taken from the Report, as is the summary of events.

  “Let Dosties’s skin be forthwith stripped and sold to Barnum”: quoted in Egerton, The Wars of Reconstruction, p. 215.

  Hurriedly he left his office: see Whitaker, Sketches of Life and Character in Louisiana, p. 24.

  “I have seen death”: quoted in the essential Rable, But There Was No Peace: The Role of Violence in the Politics of Reconstruction, p. 58.

  “It was a dark day”: Diary of HCW, July 31, 1866, SHC.

  “It is Memphis”: see for instance “Great Riot…The Fearful Scenes of Memphis Re-Enacted,” New York Times, July 31, 1866, p. 1.

  “No milder word is fitting”: Sheridan, Personal Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 235.

  “The more information I obtain”: Philip Sheridan to USG, Aug. 2, 1866, PUSG 16: 289.

  “Not to know that”: “The New Orleans Horror,” Chicago Tribune, August 8, 1866, p. 2.

  “I have been given no orders”: see Report of the Select Committee on the New Orleans Riots, p. 547.

  “Stanton avoids the responsibility”: Fitz-john Porter to Manton Marble, Aug. 3, 1866, LC.

  “That he had a political objective”: see Thomas and Hyman, Stanton, p. 445; “political passive aggression,” Marvel, Lincoln’s Autocrat: The Life of Edwin Stanton, p. 206. See also Hollandsworth, An Absolute Massacre: The New Orleans Race Riot, p. 71, and Riddleberger, 1866: The Critical Year Revisited, pp. 191–94.

  In a cabinet meeting after the massacre: Welles, Diary, vol. 2, Aug. 2, 1866, pp. 567–68, and Aug. 3, 1866, p. 560; see also “The President’s Blunder,” New York Evening Post, Aug. 6, 1866, p. 2.