In the autumn of 1824, the term of a fatherless boy’s apprenticeship expired, and he entered the world rich only in energy, and a noble ambition to provide for a widowed mother. But he was sensitive and anxious to enlarge his facilities for an education, and his strong mind grasped and analyzed the fact that to succeed he must form new ties, and find a broader field of action. Tennessee was the land of promise which attracted his attention, and accompanied by his mother, who justly deserved the affection he bestowed upon her, he reached Greenville in 1826.

Young, aspiring, and ambitious, he was not long in making friends, and among them a beautiful girl evinced her appreciation of his character, by becoming his wife. Eliza McCardle was the only daughter of a widow, whose father had been dead many years, and whose life had been spent in her mountain home. When she was married, she had just reached her seventeenth year, and her husband was not yet twenty-one.

Education in those days did not comprehend and embrace the scientific accomplishments it does now, but a naturally gifted mind, endowed with much common sense, received a broad basis for future development. She was well versed in the usual branches of instruction, and possessed, in an extraordinary degree, that beauty of face and form which rendered her mother one of the most beautiful of women.

It is a mistaken idea that she taught her husband his letters; for in the dim shadows of the workshop at Raleigh, after the toil of the day was complete, he had mastered the alphabet and made himself generally acquainted with the construction of words and sentences. The incentive to acquire mental attainment was certainly enhanced when he felt the superiority of her acquirements, and from that time his heroic nature began to discover itself. In the silent watches of the night, while sleep rested upon the village, the youthful couple studied together; she ofttimes reading as he completed the weary task before him, oftener still bending over him to guide his hand in writing.

He never had the benefit of one day’s school routine in his life, yet he acquired by perseverance the benefits denied by poverty. What a contemplation it must have been to those mothers who watched over their children as they struggled together! Let time in its flight transport us back to those years, and see what a scene was being then enacted there. In that obscure village in the mountains, three strong, yet tender-hearted women watched over and cherished the budding genius of the future statesman. History, in preserving its record of the life and services of the seventeenth President of the United States, rears to them a noble tribute of their faithfulness.

The young wife, thrifty and industrious all day, worked patiently and hopefully as night brought her pupil again to his studies, and punctually completed her womanly duties that she might be ready for the never-varying rule of their lives. Much of latent powers he owed to her indefatigable zeal and encouragement, and he never forgot those evening hours years ago when the scintillations of natural genius first began to dawn, which ultimately converted the tailor boy into the Senator, and subsequently into the President of his country.

Year after year she watched him as he rose step by step, and always as willing and earnest as when in life’s bright morn they were married.

The later years of Mrs. Johnson’s life were crowned with the honors her husband’s successes had won, but the story of her younger days is fraught with most interest to all who can appreciate true worth and genuine greatness of soul.

In her girlhood she was the purest type of a Southern beauty, and like her mother was very graceful and agreeable in her manners. I have heard persons say that her mother was the handsomest lady in all that region of country, and her old neighbors stoutly maintained that Mrs. Johnson was the image of her. Her extreme modesty denied the imputation that she was the belle of the county.

While their means increased as time passed, and the caroling of their little children gladdened their home, Mr. Johnson received his first substantial proof of the confidence of the community in which he lived in his election as “alderman.” How intense must have been the joy of the good wife as she saw her pupil progressing in a career he was so well fitted to occupy!

At this time their residence was situated on a hill just out of Greenville, simple and plain in its surroundings, yet the resort of the young people of the village. The college boys, as they passed to and fro on errands, always stopped to enjoy a chat with their “Demosthenes,” and were ever welcomed by the genial, frank manners of the gentle wife.

Fresh laurels crowned the alderman’s brow when he was chosen Mayor, and for three terms he filled the position with credit, winning for himself an enviable reputation for honest deeds and correct principles.

Little has been written of Mrs. Johnson, mainly from the fact that she always opposed any publicity being given to her private life, and from the reluctance of her friends to pain her by acceding to the oft-repeated requests of persons for sketches of her. In a conversation held with her while she was in the White House, she remarked “that her life had been spent at home, caring for her children, and practising the economy rendered necessary by her husband’s small fortune.”

An impartial writer cannot be swayed by such natural and creditable sentiments, nor is it just that a woman who was the means of advancing her husband’s interests so materially, and who occupied the position she did, should be silently passed by. She deserved, as she received from all who were fortunate enough to know her, the highest encomiums; for by her unwearying efforts she was a stepping-stone to her husband. Patient and forbearing she was universally liked, and if she had an enemy it was from no fault of hers, nor did she number any among the acquaintances of a lifetime.

Like Mr. Johnson she had very few living relatives; her children having neither aunts nor uncles, and being deprived of both grandmothers while they still were young. Mrs. Johnson’s mother died in April, 1854, and his parent lived until February, 1856; each having been the object of his tenderest care, and living to see him holding the highest position his native State could bestow. There was not two years’ difference in the deaths of these two mothers, and it was the unspeakable happiness of their children to know that as the wick burned low, and the lamp of time went out, all that peace and plenty could devise for their happiness they received, and their departure from earth was rendered calmly serene by the assurance that their work was well done and finished.

When the civil war, which snapped the cords of so many old persons’ lives and hurried them to premature graves, sounded its dread tocsin through East Tennessee, it was a source of mournful satisfaction to know that those two aged mothers lay unconscious of the approaching conflict which was to bathe that section of the State in blood. The tall grass grew unharmed, and no impious hand desecrated the resting-place of departed virtue.

During the meetings of the Legislature to which Mr. Johnson was repeatedly called, Mrs. Johnson remained at Greenville; and while he sought honors and support away from home, she found compensation for his prolonged absence in the knowledge that she best promoted his interest when she lived within their still slender means. Her children received the benefit of her ripe, matured experience, until one by one they left their home; two to marry and dwell near her, and the youngest to be a comfort in her days of suffering. Her home in Greenville was thus described in 1865: “Just down there, at the base of this hill, stands a small brick building with a back porch, and around it the necessary fixtures. It stands on the corner of the square, near where the mill-race passes under the street on its way down to the little mill. That is the first house Andrew Johnson ever owned. It now belongs to another person. Almost directly opposite the mill, whose large wheel is still moving, but whose motion is scarcely perceptible, you will see a rather humble, old-fashioned-looking, two-story brick house, standing near the south end of Main street. It has but one entrance from the street. In front of it stand three or four small shade trees. The fences of the lot and windows of the house show evident signs of dilapidation, the consequences of rebellion and of rebel rule. Like many other windows in the South, a number of panes of glass are broken out and their places supplied with paper. Glass could not be obtained in the Confederacy. As you pass along the pavement on Main street, by looking into the lot you will see several young apple trees, and in the spaces between two of them are potatoes growing. In the rear of the kitchen stands a small aspen shade-tree, and down there in the lower end of the lot is a grape-vine trained upon a trellis, forming a pleasant bower. Scattered over the lot are a number of rose, currant, and gooseberry bushes. At the lower end of the lot, and just outside, stand two large weeping willows, and under their shade is a very beautiful spring. This is the residence of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States. Up the street stands his former tailor shop, with the old sign still on it. And in an old store-room up the street are the remains of his library. At present, it consists principally of law books and public documents, most of his valuable books having been destroyed by the rebel soldiers.”

In the spring of “’61,” Mrs. Johnson spent two months in Washington with her husband, then a Senator, but failing health compelled her early return to Tennessee. Long and stormy were the seasons which passed before she again met Mr. Johnson, and how changed were all things when they resumed the broken thread of separation, after an interval of nearly two years!

At her home quietly attending to the duties of life, and cheered by the frequent visits of her children, she was startled one bright morning by the following summons:

“Dear Madam:—By Major-General E. Kirby Smith I am directed to respectfully require that you and your family pass beyond the Confederate States’ line (through Nashville, if you please) in thirty-six hours from this date.

This was an impossibility, both on account of her very poor health, and the unsettled state of her affairs. Nor did she know where to go; rumors reached her of the murder of Mr. Johnson in Kentucky, and again at Nashville; then again she would hear that he had not left Washington. She knew not what to do, and accordingly wrote to the authorities for more time to decide on some definite plan.

The military movements delayed the execution of the next order sent her, and the continued illness of Mrs. Johnson distressed her children, who knew that a change of residence would sooner or later become necessary. All the summer she remained in Greenville, occasionally visiting her daughters, and hoping daily to hear of her husband. September came, and knowing she would be compelled to leave East Tennessee, she applied to the authorities for permission to cross the lines, accompanied by her children and her son-in-law, Mr. Stover.

Finally, after numerous endeavors, the cavalcade set out. A few miles out from town they were overtaken by an order to return.

Reaching Murfreesboro, exhausted and weary from the long trip, the little band were told they could not go through the lines. The Confederate troops occupied this once beautiful town, and no accommodations were to be obtained. Wandering from one house to another after the long walk from the depot, in the night-time, without food or shelter, Mrs. Johnson and her children despaired of securing any more inviting abode than the depot, and that was a long distance from the centre of the town. As a last resort, a woman was requested to share her home with the tired refugees, and she consented with the understanding that in the morning they would depart. Their Union sentiments made them obnoxious, and it required courage to show them hospitality. Next day they returned to Tullahoma, but on arriving there received a telegram to retrace their steps, as arrangements had been made for their passage through to Nashville.

A former friend of the family obtained this favor for them, and, nothing daunted, night again found the same band at Murfreesboro.

No effort was made to secure lodgings, all preferring to stay on the cars, rather than undertake the experiences of the previous night.

The eating-house near by was vacant, and into this Colonel Stover conducted the tired party. Without fire or food, or any kind of beds or seats, they determined to stay as best they could; and but for the thoughtful, motherly care of Mrs. Johnson, it would have been a night of horrors. She had provided herself with candles and matches before starting, and the remnants of an old lunch satisfied the hunger of the little ones, and rendered less cheerless their lonely abode.

Thus, from one trouble to another, subject to the commands of military rulers, liable to be arrested for the slightest offence, and ofttimes insulted by the rabble, Mrs. Johnson and her children performed the perilous journey from Greenville to Nashville. Few who were not actual participators in the civil war can form an estimate of the trials of this noble woman. Invalid as she was, she yet endured exposure and anxiety, and passed through the extended lines of hostile armies, never uttering a hasty word or by her looks betraying in the least degree her harrowed feelings. Wherever she passed she won kind words and hearty prayers for a safe journey, and is remembered by friend and foe as a lady of benign countenance and sweet, winning manners.

The following day Mrs. Johnson received the following note:

“Mrs. Andrew Johnson:—General Forrest sends a flag of truce to Nashville to-morrow morning, and he wishes you and your party to make your arrangements to go down with the flag, at seven o’clock A. M., to-morrow.

“The General regrets that he has no transportation for you; he will send a two-horse wagon to carry your baggage, etc. By remaining until to-morrow, you can go the direct route to Nashville; by going previous to that time, the route would be necessarily circuitous.

A diary kept by a citizen of Nashville at this time contains the following:

“Quite a sensation has been produced by the arrival in Nashville of Governor Johnson’s family, after incurring and escaping numerous perils while making their exodus from East Tennessee. The male members of the family were in danger of being hung on more than one occasion. They left Bristol in the extreme northeastern section of the State, on the Virginia line, by permission of the rebel War Department, accompanied by a small escort. Wherever it became known on the railroad route that Andrew Johnson’s family were on the train, the impertinent curiosity of some rebels was only equalled by the clamor of others for some physical demonstration on Johnson’s sons. Arriving at Murfreesboro, they were met by General Forrest and his force. Forrest refused to allow them to proceed, and they were detained some time, until Isham G. Harris and Andrew Ewing, noted rebels, telegraphed to Richmond, and obtained peremptory orders allowing them to proceed. The great joy at the reunion of this long and sorrowfully separated family may be imagined. I will not attempt to describe it. Even the Governor’s Roman firmness was overcome, and he wept tears of thankfulness at this merciful deliverance of his beloved ones from the hands of their unpitying persecutors.”

Nashville and comparative quiet were at last reached, and the long separated family hoped their trials were over. Mrs. Johnson had exhausted her strength, and for many months kept her room, too feeble to venture out. But her little grandchildren enjoyed the freedom of play once more, and their happy faces are remembered by strangers and friends who watched them in their gambols about the capital.

By-and-by Mrs. Patterson joined the family in the safe asylum they had found in Nashville, and young and old were happy in the reunion. But trouble, never far from Mrs. Johnson, came very near in the cruel death of her eldest son. Not long after receiving his diploma as physician, he was appointed a surgeon in the First Tennessee Infantry.

One bright spring morning, he started on his rounds of professional duty. In the exuberance of health, youth, and spirits, he sprang upon the horse of a brother officer. He had gone but a short distance, when the high-mettled creature reared upon its hind feet suddenly; the young man was thrown backward, and falling upon the frozen earth, was instantly killed. The concussion fractured his skull. Mrs. Johnson grieved for this son as did Jacob for his beloved Joseph, and not only the mother, but the whole family, mourned with unusual poignancy his untimely death. Any mention of “Charlie’s” name for years after brought the hot tears to their eyes, and a sadness, hard to dispel, gathered about their lips, when some familiar object recalled their loved and early lost one.

The convention, in 1864, nominated Andrew Johnson, then Military Governor, for the Vice-Presidency, on the ticket with Mr. Lincoln. In March, 1865, Mr. Johnson left his family in Nashville and went on to Washington. It was their intention to vacate the house then occupied by their family and remove to their home in Greenville, but the events of the coming month caused them to form other plans. President Lincoln was assassinated the 14th of April, and the Vice-President was immediately sworn into office. A telegraphic notice in the Nashville papers the next morning contained the following:

“The Vice-President has already assumed the authority which the Constitution devolves upon him, and we feel doubly assured that he will so conduct himself in his high office as to merit the affection and applause of his countrymen.” As this was the first murder of a ruler in the experience of the Republic, it will ever occupy a prominent place in the history of America, and, involving as it did the result of civil war, will live a silent monitor to all democratic countries. Had the conspiracy, which had been carefully planned, been successfully executed, the Government would have been paralyzed. Even as it was, and there was but one death, when many others were meditated, the shock was terrible and lasting. It was a humiliating calamity to our free government, and a source of national sorrow and mortification. Men and women, reared to idealize rather than ponder the principles of the system under which they had lived; educated to give a ready assent to the hero worship of the signers of the Declaration, and voluntary adoration to the First General of the army, and the first President, rudely awakened from their dream of a perfect Government, became discouraged and dismayed at the unexpected, never to be thought of, murder of a President. It may not be amiss to give a few facts in connection with this unhappy affair, relative to the husband of Mrs. Johnson, which, affecting her interests materially, are not out of place in this sketch of her life.

After her arrival in Washington, a beautifully bound album, containing the letters of the Wisconsin State Historical Society, to Senator Doolittle, and the replies of himself and Ex-Governor Farwell, was presented to her. The letters were inscribed by an expert penman, and are prized by the family as a truthful account of Mr. Johnson’s narrow escape from death, together with the main incidents of the assassination conspiracy.

The Historical Society of Wisconsin, through Hon. L. C. Draper, its Secretary, wrote to Senator J. R. Doolittle for a full account of the circumstances; to which he replied, that “by the sagacity, presence of mind, courage, and devotion of Governor Farwell, our own distinguished fellow-citizen, Mr. Johnson was apprised of his danger, and his life secured, if not absolutely saved from destruction;” “and it is a matter of congratulation to ourselves and our State that a former Governor of Wisconsin was successfully efficient in securing the life of the nation’s Chief Magistrate.”

Governor Farwell’s letter, in reply to the request of the Society, through Senator Doolittle, is perhaps the most authentic statement ever made in regard to the unfortunate affair. It is as follows:

“Dear Sir: I have received your favor of the 22d ult., requesting, on behalf of the Wisconsin State Historical Society, a statement of my connection with the occurrences that took place in this city on the night of the assassination of President Lincoln. It is a mournful task to recall the terrible scenes that I then witnessed. Yet in order that the expressed wishes of that Society, of which from the time of its formation I have been a member, and in which I have always taken a deep interest, may be gratified, and a truthful account of those events, so far as I witnessed them, may find its way into history, I comply with the request.

“At the time of the assassination of President Lincoln, I was boarding at the Kirkwood House, my family being then in Wisconsin. The Vice-President had rooms, and was boarding at the same place, and I there came to know him, and occasionally passed an evening in his room.

“Early in the evening of April 14th, 1865, I called to see Mr. J. B. Crosby, of Massachusetts, and found that he had but a short time to stay and was very desirous of seeing the President before his return. Having noticed in the papers a statement that Mr. Lincoln was expected to be present at Ford’s Theatre on that evening, to witness the play entitled ‘Our American Cousin,’ we concluded to go thither for the express purpose of seeing him. This we did, and procured seats having the President’s box in full view on our right. When the fatal shot was fired, we involuntarily turned our eyes to the box from which the sound proceeded, and at the same instant the horrible vision of J. Wilkes Booth flashed upon my eyes, brandishing a knife, and jumping from the President’s box repeating the words, ‘Sic Semper Tyrannis.’ I had scarcely seen and heard him before he had vanished from the stage. As the President fell, and the cry ran through the house that he was assassinated, it flashed across my mind that there was a conspiracy being consummated to take the lives of the leading officers of the Government, which would include that of Mr. Johnson. The cause of this suspicion and of my alarm for the safety of Mr. Johnson was, probably, the fact of my having read in some newspaper the article copied from the Selma (Ala.) Despatch, being an offer by some fiendish rebel to aid in contributing a million of dollars for procuring the assassination of Lincoln, Johnson, and Seward.

“While some seemed paralyzed by the boldness of the deed, and others intent upon knowing how seriously the President was injured, I rushed from the theatre, and ran with all possible speed to the Kirkwood House, to apprise Mr. Johnson of the impending danger, impelled by a fear that it might even then be too late. Passing Mr. Spencer, one of the clerks of the hotel, who was standing just outside the door, I said to him, ‘Place a guard at the door: President Lincoln is murdered;’ and to Mr. Jones, another clerk, who was at the office desk as I hurried by—‘Guard the stairway and Governor Johnson’s room: Mr. Lincoln is assassinated;’ and then darting up to Mr. Johnson’s room, No. 68, I knocked, but hearing no movement, I knocked again, and called out with the loudest voice that I could command, ‘Governor Johnson, if you are in this room I must see you.’ In a moment I heard him spring from his bed, and exclaim, ‘Farwell, is that you?’ ‘Yes, let me in,’ I replied. The door opened, I passed in, locked it, and told him the terrible news, which for a time overwhelmed us both, and grasping hands, we fell upon each other as if for mutual support. But it was only for a moment. While every sound suggested the stealthy tread of a conspirator, and every corner of the chamber a lurking place, yet Mr. Johnson, without expressing any apprehension for his own safety, and with that promptness and energy which has always characterized him, at once deliberated upon the proper course to meet the emergency. But the moment of danger had passed. The officers of the hotel, as requested by me, had stationed guards, who in a short time were released by Secretary Stanton. Soon many personal friends of Mr. Johnson arrived, anxiously inquiring for his safety. In the meantime, the news of the murderous assault upon Secretary Seward and his son Frederick had reached us, and justified our fears as to the general purpose of the conspirators. Mr. Johnson was desirous of knowing the real condition of the President and Mr. Seward, and requested me to go and see them personally, and not to credit any story or rumor that might be flying about the city. This was no easy task. Distrust and horror seemed to fill every mind. The very atmosphere was burdened with stories of dark conspiracies and bloody deeds. Thousands of excited citizens, soldiers, and guards, blocked up every avenue leading to Mr. Peterson’s house, No. 453 Tenth Street, to which the President had been carried, and in which he was dying. None but prominent citizens, either known to the officers of the guard, or who could be generally vouched for, were allowed to pass, and it was with the utmost difficulty that I succeeded in working my way through the crowd and past the guards to the house, and then into the room in which the President had been placed. The news was all too true. There he lay, evidently in the agonies of death, his medical attendants doing all that human zeal or skill could devise, and many of his friends had gathered about him, some in tears. Turning away from this sad sight, I worked my way to the house of Secretary Seward, and there, too, I found that the villains had done their work. I then returned and reported to Mr. Johnson the disastrous doings of the conspirators. In a short time Mr. Johnson resolved to see the President himself. His friends thought he ought not to leave the house when there was so much excitement in the city, and when the extent of the conspiracy was unknown. President Lincoln had just been shot in the presence of a crowded assembly, and his assassin had escaped. Secretary Seward had been stabbed in his chamber, and the minion had fled. But he determined to go. Major James R. O’Beirne, commanding the Provost Guard, desired to send a detachment of troops with him, but he declined the offer, and, buttoning up his coat, and pulling his hat well down, he requested me to accompany him and the Major to lead the way, and thus we went through the multitude that crowded the streets and filled the passage-way, till we joined the sad circle of friends who were grouped around the bedside of the dying President. It is unnecessary to add anything more to this account of my connection with an event which forms, with the rebellion plot, the darkest chapter in our country’s history.

“If it is true, as regarded by many, that the life of President Johnson was saved by the timely arrival of citizens at the Kirkwood, at the risk of their lives, then such risk was properly, and so far as I am concerned, joyfully incurred, and this statement may be worthy of preservation. Trusting that this may meet the wishes of the Society as expressed through you,

The Washington correspondent of the Chicago Republican thus speaks of Mrs. Johnson:

“Mrs. Johnson, a confirmed invalid, has never appeared in society in Washington. Her very existence is a myth to almost every one. She was last seen at a party given to her grandchildren. She was seated in one of the Republican Court chairs, a dainty affair of satin and ebony. She did not rise when the children or old guests were presented to her; she simply said, ‘My dears, I am an invalid,’ and her sad, pale face and sunken eyes fully proved the expression. Mrs. Johnson looks somewhat older than the President, and her age does exceed his by a few swings of the scythe of time. She is an invalid now, but an observer would say, contemplating her, ‘A noble woman—God’s best gift to man.’ Perhaps it is well to call to mind at this time that it was this woman who taught the President to read, after she became his wife, and that in all their earlier years she was his counsellor, assistant, and guide. None but a wise and good mother could have reared such daughters as Mrs. Patterson and Mrs. Stover. When Mrs. Senator Patterson found herself ‘the first lady in the land,’ she made this remark, which has been the key-note of the feminine department of the White House from that day to the present time: ‘We are plain people, from the mountains of Tennessee, called here for a short time by a national calamity. I trust too much will not be expected of us.’ When Anna Surratt threw herself prostrate upon the floor of one of the ante-rooms of the White House, begging to see Mrs. Patterson, she said: ‘Tell the girl she has my sympathy, my tears, but I have no more right to speak than the servants of the White House.’ When the ‘pardon brokers’ trailed their slimy lengths everywhere about the Mansion, they never dared to cross a certain enchanted pathway; and the face of any lobbyist set in this direction has always brought up in the end against a stone wall.”

Mrs. Johnson shared as little as possible in the honors accorded her family, as well after as during their stay in the White House, and gladly turned her face homeward, to find rest and repose so necessary to her feeble condition.

Once more quietly established at home, she anticipated renewed happiness in the presence of her reunited family, and reasonably hoped to have much happiness in the future.

Death hovered near her when least expected, and one night, as the servant entered the room of her son (Col. Robert Johnson), he was discovered in a dying condition, and in an unconscious state passed from earth. From a tear-stained letter is gathered these sad particulars. “He was well and on the street at five o’clock, and at dusk, as the servant went as usual to light his lamp, she discovered that he was in a deep sleep. He was never aroused from it. All the physicians of the village were immediately called in, but alas! too late to do any good. He breathed his last at half-past eleven that night, without a single groan or struggle.

“I do not suppose he ever made an enemy in his life. He was certainly the most popular boy ever raised in this part of the country, and continued so after he became a man. Oh, if he could only have spoken one word to us! but he passed into the tomb, unconscious of all around him. He was buried with Masonic honors, and the largest funeral ever before seen in this village accompanied his remains to the grave.”

After seven years of wanderings, he was permitted to accompany his parents to their home, and to die surrounded by the friends of his youth.

Mrs. Johnson grieved deeply for this son as she had done for his brother. She lived in and for her family, and the loss of any one dear to her affected her seriously. Frail in health, tried by anxiety and care in early life, and a confirmed sufferer in maturer years, she became now a helpless invalid; and though she was glad to be at home again, pleased to see the kindly faces of her old neighbors and friends, she could not be an active participator in anything. She could only mourn for her dead, and receive and give comfort to those about her in her own home. The world saw but little more of her. The suggestion at this time that she would live longer than Mr. Johnson, if made to her, would have been derided. She had little thought of recovering her health at any time, and particularly after the first ten years of her invalidism. Subsequent to her return, and the death of Robert, she ceased to entertain the wish to live many years, for she was less and less concerned in public affairs, now that her husband had retired, and was likely to remain, as she thought, in private life. His health was not as robust as formerly, and during the summer succeeding his return from Washington, he was stricken with cholera, and his life was for a time despaired of. From this he recovered, and in the fall he was again participating in the service of redeeming Tennessee from the reconstruction errors into which it had been led by men more eager for place than true principle.

In 1874 Mr. Johnson was elected to the Senate to succeed William G. Brownlow, and his wife saw him set out again for Washington, holding the same position he had held before the war. She rejoiced in the ovation that was paid him; read all that the papers said of him, and was pleased that his career was not over, as she had at one time supposed. He was again in Greenville in the early spring, and the quiet home-life was continued during the summer. He spent much time from home during the following season, making speeches throughout the State, and giving his time as of old to politics. As a defeated candidate, he returned to Greenville from Nashville that season, and Mrs. Johnson then felt that they were two old people who would go towards the grave together quietly, surrounded by the worldly comfort he had secured for his family. This was not to be, however.

It was given him to enjoy the triumph of a re-election to the Senate for the long term, beginning in December, 1874, and he sat out the extraordinary session, and made his last speech in the Louisiana case. But it was not given this indomitable patriot long to enjoy the dignity with ease, which his own party and his opponents equally wished. He only lived to attend this one session, and the opportunity was given him to make one speech of importance to himself as a vindication of the course he had pursued while President. It was an appeal for the rights of a population whose government was kept from them by military force, and in it he threw all the fervor and sincerity of a man who was not only deeply interested in the subject, but who was speaking in favor of a policy he had devised and upheld under most adverse circumstances. Naturally enough, it was the grandest effort of his life, as it was his last. He went back from the Senate to his own people, and in midsummer he was stricken down with death. On the morning of the 31st of July, 1875, he died at the residence of his youngest daughter in Carter county. Her home was not far distant from Greenville, and he thought that, though ill when starting, he would recuperate from the fatigue of the ride, and recover more speedily in the country than in town. He had frequently said to his physician that “he did not think he could hold out more than a year or two longer, as he was completely worn out.” Two days before his last illness, he made a similar remark to his wife, who was anxiously noting the change that had come over his spirits. He left her in the early morning, saying good-bye, with no thought of a longer absence than a week or two. The next morning his son and daughter were summoned to their father’s bedside, and the startling news was broken to the invalid wife. She could not go to him, and her part was to remain alone in her deserted house, while her children hastened away. When they returned, it was to bring with them the dead. From this shock she did not recover. At no time had she ever entertained the slightest thought of outliving her husband, and now that this event had occurred, she was stunned and bewildered. She lived for six months, and died at the home of her eldest daughter on the 13th of January, 1876. It was not an unlooked-for event, though her children had become so accustomed to her invalidism, that they could not realize she was dying. She was always quiet and gentle, and her serenity deceived even those who watched over her continually. Very patiently and uncomplainingly she bore her part of sorrows, and it was only after she was dead that others realized what a sufferer she had been. Denied every other means of serving her loved ones, she cheered them, and the unselfishness of her life was not fully understood until two white hands were clasped in death, and her sad eyes were closed forever. She lived for others, and counted not self, and was rewarded for all life’s trials in the love she was capable of giving to others. She was a woman of heroic mould, and her life-example was a noble one to her family, to her friends, and to the world.

Mrs. Johnson was buried beside her husband in the romantic place he selected many years ago. At the time he bought the property, Mr. Johnson offered to purchase sufficient ground for a public cemetery, provided the authorities would improve it. The liberal offer was not accepted, and for a time there were no other graves there. The monument erected by the children is a superb structure, standing twenty-six feet high, with a base that is nearly ten feet square. Granite piers rest on each of the graves, lying side by side, over which is sprung a granite arch, and upon this the monument rests, leaving an opening under the arch, through which are seen the graves. The structure is one of great beauty, with its four funeral urns supported on pilasters, and its exquisite carving. Upon the front of the arch is carved a scroll, representing the Constitution of the United States, and an open book with a hand resting upon it, representing the taking of the oath of office. Over the apex of the shaft—which of itself is thirteen feet high—hangs an American flag in graceful folds, and surmounting the whole is an American eagle with outstretched wings. On the 28th of May, 1878, this monument was unveiled with the most imposing ceremonies, and for the first time the simple inscription was seen. It contained the names, ages, and death dates of Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, and underneath the name of the seventeenth President is the motto: