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The impeachment of Andrew Johnson

There were 11 articles of impeachment against Andrew Johnson, our nation’s 17th President, who went on trial in the Senate back in 1868. Articles 1 through 9 dealt with the Tenure of Office Act. Article 10 dealt with speeches Johnson had given in which he was accused of bringing disgrace upon Congress, and Article 11 was a “catch-all” that incorporated allegations from all the other articles.

Andrew Johnson was a Democrat who became president in April 1865, after President Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, was assassinated just one month into his second term and just five days after Lee’s surrender to Grant that effectively ended the Civil War. Andrew Johnson was not vice president during Lincoln’s first term. Hannibal Hamlin was. But leading up to the 1864 presidential election, the Republicans decided to dump Hamlin from the ticket in favor of Andrew Johnson, who was a Senator from Tennessee. Andrew Johnson had stood out from all the other Southern Democrats because he had stayed loyal to the Union during the war. The goal therefore was to have a “national unity” ticket. But Andrew Johnson did not bring unity to the country. Just the opposite. At the inauguration in March 1865, Lincoln delivered a beautiful address calling for our nation to heal. But Andrew Johnson appeared to be drunk. He was disrespectful, and he insulted cabinet members and embarrassed himself.

Andrew Johnson was also a racist to his core. He infuriated the Republican-dominated Congress by acting on his own rather than through the legislative process on Reconstruction. He wanted to welcome the rebel states back quickly, and he wanted to empower the former Confederates to continue their cruel oppression of those whom they had enslaved. He vetoed legislation passed by Congress, but most of his vetoes were overridden. Congress also passed, by overriding yet another veto, the Tenure of Office Act, which was the legal noose with which they intended to hang Andrew Johnson. The law stated that the president needed Senate approval to fire a cabinet secretary. Congress accused Andrew Johnson of violating the law when he tried to remove Edwin Stanton as secretary of war. Gotcha! It was a dumb law that was later repealed, but it formed the basis for what would become the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.

From the start, the trial itself turned into a bit of a circus. The Republicans were disorganized, and their legal case was ill conceived. The Democrats, meanwhile, used all manner of crazy tricks to delay and obstruct the proceedings. It got really ugly. They argued that Salmon P. Chase, Chief Justice of the United States, who presided over the trial, should not be allowed to make judicial rulings. And when witnesses were finally called, the Democrats objected to everything and the result was that after each question, the entire Senate had to vote up or down on whether or not a witness could answer. This made everything take forever. Opening and closing arguments also took forever. In the early days of the trial the galleries were packed with visitors. But the speeches were so long-winded that people quickly got bored.

The Senate voted on Article 11 first. After Johnson was acquitted by a single vote, the House managers, the prosecutors of the trial, called for adjournment to re-strategize. After a break that lasted 10 days, the Senate voted next on Articles 2 and then 3, with the same results. The House managers then abandoned their effort altogether. The Senate never voted on Article 1, or on Articles 4 through 10.

Later that year, Ulysses S. Grant was elected our nation’s 18th president.

David O. Stewart impeached book review
“Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy,” by David O. Stewart

 

All this is described in great detail in “Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy,” a book by David O. Stewart. This is one of many books on the impeachment of Johnson. Other books cover the impeachment proceedings against Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, and many other books cover the impeachment cases against all three. I really liked Stewart’s book on Johnson’s impeachment. I found it to be comprehensive, and even a bit suspenseful. The author shows that the trial was both a judicial proceeding and a political exercise. He also explains that impeachment is rooted in British law and had been included in the U.S. Constitution as a stopgap measure against tyrannical rule. (Note: At the time our founding fathers wrote the Constitution, there were no political parties!) I think the author of this book did a good job of placing the impeachment into the context of the times. Our country had never been so divided, and the whole matter was tragic. A quote from the book: “Andrew Johnson was an unfortunate president, an angry and obstinate hater at a time when the nation needed a healer. Those who opposed him were equally intemperate in word and deed. It was an intemperate time.”

Here are a few more notes on the impeachment of Andrew Johnson:

  • There was no Vice President at this time, so had Andrew Johnson been convicted in the Senate and removed from office, Benjamin Wade of Ohio, as President Pro Tem of the Senate, would have become president. In the time leading up to and during the trial, those seeking government jobs inundated Wade with requests.
  • The author makes a strong case that many of the Senators who voted to acquit had been bribed.
  • The two Senators from Michigan voted to convict.
  • Republicans from the House led by Thaddeus Stevens and Benjamin Butler acted as prosecutors. Stevens was an elderly, fire-breathing, anti-slavery “radical.”
  • This had been the third attempt to impeach Andrew Johnson. There was also a fourth attempt, which went nowhere.

Before Johnson, the only other president to face the possibility of impeachment had been John Tyler. It would not happen again until Nixon, who resigned before a House vote on impeachment. Clinton was also impeached but was acquitted in his Senate trial, which was presided over by Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Clinton faced two articles of impeachment, for lying to a grand jury and for obstruction of justice.

Impeachment might happen again. In my view, having read about the trial of Andrew Johnson and how that all unfolded, getting to two-thirds (67 votes) in the Senate to oust the current president seems far from likely.

Andrew Johnson as avenger

If I’m going to cry while reading a presidential biography, that usually happens when I get to the end. This book, by Howard Means, brought tears to my eyes at the beginning. It opens with a vivid, minute-by-minute description of the events of April 14 and 15, 1865. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln by the vile racist John Wilkes Booth was part of a conspiracy, with Booth as the ringleader, in which Vice President Andrew Johnson, Secretary of State William H. Seward, and General Ulysses S. Grant were all to be killed on the same night.

Lee had surrendered to Grant at Appomattox just days earlier, on April 9, effectively ending the Civil War, but the conspirators had somehow hoped that decapitating the leadership of the U.S government would throw everything into chaos, thus enabling the South to reignite the war. It was a far-fetched idea, which did not work out as planned and had disastrous consequences for everyone.

The Lincolns had invited Grant and his wife to accompany them to Ford’s Theater that fateful night, and their attendance together had even been published in newspapers. But the Grants declined the invitation at the last minute and departed by train on a family trip to New Jersey. Booth was a well-known actor who was able to gain access to the theater. He also knew the exact moments during “Our American Cousin” when the audience would laugh, thus helping him sneak into the presidential box to fire the fatal bullet. Meanwhile George Atzerodt, the guy who was supposed to kill Johnson at his room at Kirkwood House, did not show up. He spent time that night on a barstool and either got drunk and forgot, or simply chickened out. The author speculates that had Atzerodt found the courage to attack the belligerent Johnson that night, the confrontation would not have ended well for the attempted assassin.

Lewis Powell, however, did in fact show up to kill Seward, who had recently been in a carriage accident and was recuperating at home in bed. Powell showed up at the house and told family members that he was delivering medicine. When Seward’s son Frederick refused to let him upstairs, Powell pistol whipped him and stormed into the Secretary of State’s room. His gun had jammed, so he pulled a knife and stabbed Seward, in a grisly attack with blood everywhere, before fleeing on horseback. By some miracle, Seward survived the assassination attempt.

All this takes place in the first (and best) chapter of “The Avenger Takes His Place: Andrew Johnson and the 45 Days That Changed the Nation.” The title is taken from a line in a poem by Herman Melville, written in that era, which evokes the feelings many had at the time. Despite the “malice toward none” and “charity for all” that Lincoln had promised in his second inaugural, many wanted to see the South punished after the war. These sentiments were very real, as the author of “The Avenger” describes, by citing personal letters written at the time, quotes from newspaper editorials — and even descriptions of what preachers were saying to congregants in their sermons in churches.

Fred Michmershuizen

While this book was definitely insightful, especially in describing the mood of the country at the time of Lincoln’s assassination and its aftermath, I still feel I could learn more about the 17th president — especially his dealings with Congress and his impeachment trial in the Senate. This book by Means is the second one I have read about Andrew Johnson. The other was by Annette Gordon-Reed. Both Means and Gordon-Reed make frequent references to an earlier biography, by Hans L. Trefousse, a copy of which I recently found at The Strand bookstore here in NYC. But I subsequently moved on to Ronald C. White’s excellent biography of Grant (with yet another book review coming very soon), and I am now taking a detour by reading the biography of yet another famous general. So I will return to Andrew Johnson at another time.

Andrew Johnson

The effort to impeach him failed. More on that in a moment.

Andrew Johnson was a Democratic senator from Tennessee when the Southern states moved to secede in 1861. He delivered a fiery pro-Union speech on the floor of the Senate, speaking over the course of two days. His words were widely published in newspapers, and he became quite popular among the Unionists in the North. In the South he was villianized. Tennessee seceded with the other Southern states, but there were strong pockets of pro-Union resistance there, especially in the eastern part of the state. When the Union achieved battlefield victories in Tennessee, Lincoln appointed Andrew Johnson military governor.

Fred Michmershuizen

By 1864, the Civil War was entering its fourth year. The death toll was continuing to rise and there was no end in sight. Many were growing tired of the conflict, and it was looking like Lincoln was going to be defeated for re-election by George B. McClellan, the general he had fired for delaying too much. It was under these circumstances that Hannibal Hamlin, Lincoln’s vice president during his first term, a fellow Republican from Maine, was dumped from the ticket and replaced by Andrew Johnson. The pro-Union southern Democrat. They ran on the “National Union Party.” Later that year, after General Ulysses S. Grant won important victories in Virginia and General William Tecumseh Sherman took Atlanta, the tide turned once and for all in the Union’s favor and Lincoln was easily re-elected, with Andrew Johnson as his new vice president.

In his second inaugural in March 1865, Lincoln was magnanimous, offering some of the most eloquent words ever spoken by an American. But moments earlier, the incoming vice president appeared to be drunk, and he gave an incoherent, rambling speech in which he embarrassed himself and mortified everyone present. To everyone’s shock and horror, Lincoln was assassinated a month later, and Andrew Johnson became the 17th president of the United States. Unfortunately for the 3 million newly freed people of color, Andrew Johnson was a racist. Even by 19th Century standards, he was a racist.

Lee had just surrendered to Grant, meaning it was time to figure out how to put the country back together again. Congress was ready to work with the new president, but Andrew Johnson wanted to do it his own way. He was stubborn and did not want to listen or collaborate. Earlier, Andrew Johnson had led everyone to believe that he was going to be harsh on the secessionists and punish them. But he ended up issuing broad amnesty and offering thousands of pardons. Meanwhile he offered nothing, literally nothing, for the formerly enslaved, who had literally nothing and were desperately in need of some assistance, an education, and most importantly some land to farm. Congress passed a Freedmen’s Bureau Bill and a Civil Rights Bill, which Andrew Johnson vetoed. His vetoes were then overridden by Congress. This became a pattern. Congress kept passing laws, Andrew Johnson kept vetoing, and Congress kept overriding.

It got really nasty between Congress and the president. So nasty that Andrew Johnson became the first American president to face an impeachment trial in the Senate. Congress had passed a law called the Tenure of Office Act, requiring the president to get Senate approval before firing any cabinet secretaries. Andrew Johnson challenged this law by firing Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, which set up a huge battle of wills and all sorts of drama. There were 11 articles of impeachment, nine of which had to do with the Tenure of Office Act.

In the end Andrew Johnson survived by a single vote. But it was 1868 already, and his presidency was almost over anyway.

Here are a few more facts about Andrew Johnson:

  • Born in a log cabin!
  • He came from poverty. He looked at the Civil War as a class struggle between rich industrialists in the north aligned with plantation owners in the South, versus the common working (white) man.
  • He married Eliza McCardle, and they had several children. Eliza was frequently sick and almost never appeared at White House events as “first lady.” One of Johnson’s daughters served as hostess.
  • They were married by Mordecai Lincoln, a cousin of Abraham Lincoln!
  • He was a tailor. He was sometimes referred to as a “mudsill,” a derogatory term used against him because he once had a shop with a dirt floor.
  • He entered politics as an alderman and then mayor of Greenville, Tennessee. He subsequently was elected to the Tennessee state legislature, then to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served four terms. When he was redistricted out of office, he ran for governor of Tennessee and won. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1857. In those days Senators were chosen by state legislatures, not by direct popular vote. When Tennessee seceded in 1861, Andrew Johnson remained in the Senate.
  • After his presidency he ran for the United States Senate from Tennessee and lost. Then he ran for the House and lost. Then he ran again for the Senate and this time he won. Six months later he died.
  • One more note: During the Andrew Johnson presidency, Secretary of State William H. Seward (who had served in the office under Lincoln and stayed on) purchased Alaska from Russia. So in addition to botching Reconstruction we can also thank Andrew Johnson for Sarah Palin.

This biography, “Andrew Johnson,” by Annette Gordon-Reed, part of the American Presidents Series, was clear and concise but, for me, just a bit too short. The books in the American Presidents Series are generally quite good, but they are limited to 200 pages or less. For such a consequential president I subsequently decided to add another volume to my reading list. But that will be a book report for another day.

Generations of Captivity by Ira Berlin

Of all the atrocities of slavery — from being forced to work from sunup to sundown, six days a week, with no pay, for life; to being raped, beaten, branded, mutilated and tortured; and to being subjected to all manner of racial degradation and humiliation — none was more horrible than the forced separation from family members. This happened all the time. Young children were literally torn from the arms of their mothers, often never to be seen or heard from again. (Before he even learned to walk and talk, Frederick Bailey, who would later change his surname to Douglass, was taken from his mother to be raised by his grandmother. Later he was separated from his grandmother as well.) Every enslaved person lived in constant fear that a brother or sister, a parent or child, even a wife or husband, could be sold, at a moment’s notice, for any reason — or for no reason at all. Being sold south was the worst.

Ira Berlin book review

For many hundreds of years — from the moment settlers first came to the New World until the end of the Civil War — forced unpaid labor and human exploitation existed in this country. In “Generations of Captivity,” a comprehensive history of slavery in North America, author Ira Berlin describes the difference between free societies, societies with slaves, and slave societies — all of which existed at one time or another, and often simultaneously.

As the author explains, slavery often transformed itself, depending on what crops were being grown and where. In Virginia there was tobacco, and in South Carolina rice. Sugar was grown in the Caribbean, where conditions for the enslaved were most brutal and almost always resulted in death within a few short years. When planters in the tobacco-growing states realized their cash crop was too difficult to grow and that it depleted the soil too much, they gave up on it and switched over to grain crops, which were less labor intensive. But further south, a whole new generation of landowners started growing cotton, so vast numbers of enslaved people were forcibly migrated against their will to Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. This great migration, similar to the Trail of Tears that the American Indians were subjected to, resulted in even more forced separation of family members.

Berlin writes that after the Civil War ended, most of the newly freed people immediately began searching for lost family members. Travel, word of mouth, even placing ads in newspapers were some of the methods used to help locate missing relatives. Sometimes those efforts were successful, many other times not. (In another book I read that Harriet Tubman, who had been separated from a sister before she escaped to the north and became a hero of the Underground Railroad, was never able to locate the sister even after slavery had been abolished.)

This book, “Generations of Captivity,” is one of many on the history of slavery. I learned so much from reading this, and I benefited from the helpful maps and tables included in it.

Frederick Douglass

Had Frederick Douglass lived long enough to see a black man elected president, he would have been elated. Then, when he saw that racists had concocted a hateful conspiracy theory about that first black president’s birth certificate, Douglass would have been saddened but hardly surprised.

Frederick Bailey was born into slavery, but he escaped to freedom in the North and reinvented himself as Frederick Douglass — an activist, author, orator and public figure. He wrote three autobiographies, was editor of four different newspapers, gave countless speeches, and was a prolific writer. He got to know eight presidents (two of whom were assassinated).

Douglass grew up on a plantation on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. From an early age, it was apparent that he was gifted with a brilliant intellect. He was owned by Thomas Auld, who sent him to live with his brother, Hugh Auld, in Baltimore. It was Hugh’s wife who taught a young Frederick to read. Baltimore at the time was what Ira Berlin, in his book “Generations of Captivity,” would have called a society with slaves (as opposed to a free society or a slave society), meaning that free and enslaved blacks, and whites, often lived and worked together and intermingled with one another. An owner could rent out his slave or even send him to work for wages, keeping all or most of the wages for himself. In Baltimore Douglass was sent to work in the shipyards as a caulker, but after numerous disputes he was sent back to the plantation. It was from there that he escaped, by train, with Anna, a free black woman, whom he married and had children with. He and Anna went to Massachusetts and eventually settled in Rochester, N.Y. Years later, their home was destroyed by arson and Douglass moved his family to Washington, D.C.

Almost immediately after escaping to freedom, Douglass began working with abolitionists, of whom there were various factions and different schools of thought. He forged lifelong friendships — and rivalries — with many, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Harriett Beecher Stowe, Ida Wells and many others. Unlike many in the movement, Douglass thought that slavery could and should be ended from within the framework of the U.S. Constitution.

During the Civil War, Douglass helped recruit black soldiers for the Union Army. After the war, Douglass witnessed not only the abolishment of slavery but also the granting of citizenship and the right to vote for blacks under the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the constitution, respectively. But true racial equality, sadly, was elusive. Douglass watched with alarm as blacks in the South were terrorized by lynchings, and he witnessed the establishment of widespread and systematic voter disenfranchisement of blacks in the South, which would persist long after his death, well into the 1960s.

He died at home on February 20, 1895, when he was in his late 70s. Earlier that day, he had delivered a speech on women’s rights after being led to the podium by Susan B. Anthony.

Here are some additional facts about this important figure in American history:

  • He was tall, handsome and strong. When he was a slave, he proved to an overseer in a high-stakes wrestling confrontation that he could not be overpowered physically.
  • He crossed the Atlantic many times but never got seasick.
  • He had light-colored skin and frizzy hair, which eventually turned white.
  • He was quick to take offense at the most trivial of slights, usually when someone acted in a condescending manner toward him or his family.
  • He had the ability to mimic others, a talent he used to great effect during speeches in which he would mock slave owners and others.
  • On many occasions during his speeches, racists in the back of the room heckled him. Sometimes they threw rocks or rotten eggs at him.
  • He frequently worked within the system. President Grant appointed him on a mission to Santo Domingo. President Hayes appointed him marshal for the District of Columbia, and President Benjamin Harrison appointed him ambassador to Haiti. He was also named president of a bank for freedmen, which failed.
  • After Anna died, Douglass got married again, to a white woman named Helen Pitts. Together, they traveled extensively throughout Europe, even venturing as far as Greece and Egypt.

Frederick Douglass book review

After reading most recently about Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee — men who fought to maintain a slave society — I wanted to read about someone who fought for racial justice and equality. I found the biography “Frederick Douglass” by William S. McFeely to be immensely enlightening. I finished it on the plane back from New Orleans, and the final pages brought tears to my eyes. Reading this well-researched book, I felt I got to know the subject as a human being. The author does not hold back in pointing out his subject’s mistakes and weaknesses, of which there were many. Most importantly, however, McFeely describes the lifelong quest of Frederick Douglass — to establish and maintain full legal, political and social equality for all, regardless of skin color. It’s work that remains, to this day, unfinished.

Robert E. Lee

Even before the Civil War ended, many Southerners began to lionize their military leader, looking to him as a mythological hero or even sometimes as a Christ-like figure. In my view, those who would romanticize the Confederate general in such a way were then — as they are today — misguided. Yet those who would demonize him are also mistaken. Robert E. Lee was not a villain.

Robert E. Lee

Reading this fascinating, 400-page biography of Lee, I came to like him in many ways. I also learned many jaw-dropping facts.

Robert E. Lee’s father was Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee, who had fought under George Washington in the Revolutionary War. It was Robert E. Lee’s father who uttered the immortal phrase about the father of our country, at Washington’s funeral, that he was “First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen.” But Robert E. Lee’s connections to George Washington do not end there. He married Mary Custis — who was the step-great-granddaughter of George Washington!

George Washington did not have any children of his own. But Martha was a widow who had children with her first husband, and two of Martha’s grandchildren, including George Washington Parke Custis (also known as “Washy,” who would become Robert E. Lee’s father-in-law) were adopted by George Washington and grew up at Mount Vernon.

Like many of our nation’s founding fathers, George Washington owned slaves. Approximately half were his, but the other half belonged to his wife’s estate. The Custis family estate. When he died, Washington freed all his own slaves in his will. Not only that, he also directed that they be provided with care if they were elderly, that they know or be taught a trade if they were of working age, and that they receive an education if they were children. But Martha’s slaves, which were legally part of the Custis family estate, were legally off limits to Washington and thus passed to George Washington Parke Custis (again remember he is Robert E. Lee’s father in-law) upon Martha’s death. When George Washington Parke Custis died in 1857, he named Robert E. Lee executor of his will and he directed that his slaves be freed within the next five years. It actually took Robert E. Lee six years to carry out this directive, and as it turned out it was somewhat of a moot point because the Civil War was going on and the slaves had all escaped to freedom.

From the Custis family estate, Robert E. and Mary Lee inherited a plantation in Arlington and moved into the mansion there, but when the Civil War started it was quickly occupied by the Union army, and Mary and the children had to leave. The Union army began using the property to bury their war dead, including on the front lawn of what had been Robert E. Lee’s house. This would become the site of Arlington National Cemetery, where Arlington House still stands.

Like many others of his day both from the North and the South, Robert E. Lee had what can only be called today racist views. He felt that blacks were inferior to whites. (He felt that Comanche Indians were even more inferior.) After the Civil War Lee was summoned to testify before a congressional committee and he was asked if blacks should be given the right to vote. Lee said no. Yet the author also recounts a story of Lee going to church after the war and sharing the communion rail with a black man, thus setting an example for other whites in attendance.

Here are some additional facts about Robert E. Lee:

  • He graduated from West Point and was second in his class. Not only that, but he did so without receiving a single demerit during the entire four years!
  • He was a U.S. Army engineer, and his early assignments included surveying work in Michigan and Ohio, building a fort in Georgia, and getting the Mississippi River to flow better around the port at St. Louis.
  • Later, Lee became superintendent of West Point. He hated to expel cadets but every once in a while there was one who just would not follow any rules no matter what he tried. One cadet Lee kicked out was James McNeill Whistler — who would go on to become the famous American painter, known for “Whistler’s Mother.”
  • Lee fought in the Mexican-American War under general Zachary Taylor, who would go on to become our nation’s 12th president. Lee’s future foe, Ulysses S. Grant, also served in the Mexican-American War under Taylor.
  • Lee was a really good letter-writer, and he carried on lifelong pen-pal relationships with a number of younger women.
  • He had a sense of humor.
  • He was shy, he hated to give speeches, and he avoided personal confrontations. This latter characteristic was a liability during the war, when he often had a difficult time getting his generals to do what he wanted.
  • As a military strategist, he was quite good in that he was able to carve out victories (or prevent losses) despite being vastly out-numbered in terms of resources and troop strength at almost every turn. I am certainly no expert, but in my view many of his battle plans were too complicated.
  • Philosophically, he was aligned with the Federalists, even though that political party had essentially ceased to exist by the time Lee came of age.
  • After the war, Lee became president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia.

As books about historical figures go, I thought that “Robert E. Lee: A Biography” by Emory M. Thomas was a good one. When I was trying to decide which book on Lee to read, I wanted to find one that neither lionized nor demonized the subject, something this author purported was his goal. I think for the most part he did a good job with this. I also wanted a one-volume, cradle-to-grave biography that was comprehensive, yet not too exhaustive. As I discovered recently at Barnes and Noble, there are multi-volume books on individual Civil War battles! I’m not that dedicated. For me, reading about the actual battles can be rather tedious and even confusing at times. A few criticisms of this book include its rather quick treatment of the battle of Petersburg, which was really a 10-month siege. I would have liked to learn more about Lee’s reaction to big events like the Emancipation Proclamation and the assassination of Lincoln. At times, especially in the closing chapters, I found the author repeating himself. But most importantly, I do think that Thomas presented a good portrait of Lee as a human being, including many of his complexities and contradictions. I am so glad I took the time to learn more about Robert E. Lee, and I am glad I picked this book in particular.

Jefferson Davis

As president of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis was under almost constant criticism from members of the rebel congress, from many of the newspapers in the South, and from his military. There were bread riots and protests over the draft. At one point, Arkansas even threatened to secede from the Confederacy! Davis had lots of trouble with his generals, but he worked the best with Robert E. Lee.

More facts about Jefferson Davis:

  • Graduated from West Point!
  • He fought in the Mexican-American War.
  • He was Secretary of War under Franklin Pierce
  • His first wife was the daughter of Zachary Taylor.
  • He was often sick in bed, and at some point he lost an eye.
  • He was elected to a six-year term as president of the Confederacy. He ran unopposed.
  • He was a micromanager and a bit of a control freak.
  • He was said to be grumpy.

Jefferson Davis book review

I’m not a huge fan of the Confederacy, and I think anyone who flies a Confederate flag today, in 2018, is a racist. But I wanted to read more about the Civil War. “Embattled Rebel: Jefferson David as Commander in Chief” by James M. McPherson was on the bargain table at Barnes and Noble, in hardcover, for six bucks. It’s by the same author as the book I completed immediately before this one, “Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief,” and I found it was an interesting follow up.

Rather than being a “cradle-to-grave” biography that I prefer reading, this book focuses almost exclusively on the war from the South’s perspective. There is not much about the upbringing of Jefferson Davis, his family life, his career leading up to the Civil war and what happened to him after. The author describes the immense disadvantages the South faced, and he describes the three times that the South came closest to winning the Civil War.

Lincoln as wartime president

Lincoln went through many generals in the first few years of the Civil War. Many frustrated him by. McClellan gave him the most trouble, with his constant delaying and complaining. But Grant didn’t complain or blame others.

In my goal to read at least one book about each president in order, I am about a third of the way through. Before I move on to Andrew Johnson, however, I wanted to read more about the Civil War. “Tried By War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief,” by James M. McPherson, focuses on Lincoln as a wartime president.

Fred Mick

The Civil War encompassed the entire presidency of Abraham Lincoln. He was a hands-on military leader who got deep into planning, strategy and personnel decisions. He spent many long hours in the telegraph office, monitoring news from the battlefield. He visited troops in person, met with his generals at their camps, and he even participated in a few campaigns. He and Mary Todd often visited the wounded soldiers at military hospitals.

Thanks to Richard Dalglish for recommending that I add this to my reading list! I am glad I did!

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

In “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln,” author Doris Kearns Goodwin focuses on how Lincoln assembled and worked with his cabinet, which was (in my view) the best cabinet since that of George Washington.

Fred Michmershuizen

Leading up to the Republican nominating convention in 1860, the front-runner was William H. Seward, who had been governor of New York and a United States Senator. Seward was a giant in the Senate, an elder statesman, the “heir apparent” to the nomination and the presidency. There was also Salmon P. Chase, who had also been a Senator and a Governor of his home state of Ohio, and Edward Bates of Missouri. But at the convention none of them could get a majority, so their delegates switched over to Lincoln, who got the nomination on the third ballot.

After he was elected, Lincoln immediately decided he wanted his three main political foes to join him. He had a party and a country to hold together, and he wanted the best and brightest, working with him. So he set aside all personal rivalry and chose Seward as Secretary of State, Chase as Treasury Secretary, and Bates as Attorney General. Later, he also brought in Edwin Stanton as Secretary of War. Years previous, Stanton had humiliated Lincoln during a court trial they were both involved with as lawyers. But again, Lincoln did not let his hurt feelings from the past get in the way of picking the person he thought was best for the country.

These choices turned out to be excellent ones. Lincoln became closest with Seward and Stanton, who were crucial in the war effort. Chase was an excellent manager of the nation’s finances and proved vital as well, but he was often complaining and scheming behind Lincoln’s back and kept threatening to resign when he did not get his way. Lincoln kept Chase because he felt the country needed him.

This is the book upon which the 2012 movie “Lincoln,” directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Daniel Day Lewis, was based. But the movie focuses mostly on Lincoln’s fight to get the House of Representatives to pass the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery, which does not come until the very end of this 750-page text. So it’s weird to say on the cover that this book is “now a major motion picture.” Perhaps it’s because, in many ways, the movie draws on larger themes in “Team of Rivals” — in that it shows how Lincoln thought through complex issues, how he often used storytelling to make a political point, and how he faced immense heartbreak in his family life.

The first third of this book is really four biographies in one, jumping between the careers and lives of Seward, Chase and Bates in addition to Lincoln. There is so much in the book that is not covered at all in the movie, so if you watch the movie and don’t read the book you’re really missing out. This was a long book that took me more than a month to finish, but I learned so much and I’m so glad I read it.

One thing I learned in my reading was that out of all the men around Lincoln, it was Chase who was the most anti-slavery, who held what would be called today the “most progressive” views of racial equality. That’s why I was especially touched that Lincoln named Chase to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Lincoln had finally accepted Chase’s resignation after Chase had schemed yet again behind his back. Seward, Stanton and Bates wanted the court seat and had been more loyal. But yet again Lincoln set aside what most others in his position might have done and picked the person he felt was best for the country.

Reading a book on every president

In early 2017, I decided to make a commitment to read at least one biography of every president, in order. As of today (Feb. 18, 2018) I have finished everyone up to Lincoln, the 16th president. For some presidents — Washington, Madison and Jackson — I have read two books. I also finished biographies of Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay, the Marquis de Lafayette and Harriett Tubman.

How do I decide which author’s book to read on a particular president? One of my favorite sources is Stephen Floyd’s excellent website, My Journey Through the Best Presidential Biographies, and his very helpful list of book reviews, located here. There is also a good listing by Natalie Jennings and Sean Sullivan on the Washington Post’s “The Fix” blog, located here. I also consult the reviews on Amazon, and The New York Times Book Review is helpful for more recently published books.

I prefer to a cradle-to-grave, one-volume book, and I prefer to get a new, hard copy (I do not like to read an e-Book). Because I have hang-ups about germs, getting a clean copy is important to me! I prefer paperback to hardcover, because paperbacks are a bit lighter weight and easier to carry around.

How do I find time for so much reading? I try to devote at least an hour every night after dinner (so much less TV viewing time for me) and on long flights. If I go to lunch or dinner by myself, I bring my current book.

Fred Michmershuizen Dental Tribune

 

Before I move on to Andrew Johnson, the 17th president, I intend to read at least one more book on Lincoln, plus I also want to throw in Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Frederick Douglass.

I will continue to post my “book reports” as I continue reading, learning and reflecting.