LINCOLN'S GRAVE, SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS.
CHAPTER XIX.
ADMINISTRATIONS OF JOHNSON AND GRANT 1865-1877.
Andrew Johnson—Reconstruction—Quarrel Between the President and Congress—The Fenians—Execution of Maximilian—Admission of Nebraska—Laying of the Atlantic Cable—Purchase of Alaska—Impeachment and Acquittal of the President—Carpet-bag Rule in the South—Presidential Election of 1868—U.S. Grant—Settlement of the Alabama Claims—Completion of the Overland Railway—The Chicago Fire—Settlement of the Northwestern Boundary—Presidential Election of 1872—The Modoc Troubles—Civil War in Louisiana—Admission of Colorado—Panic of 1873—Notable Deaths—Custer's Massacre—The Centennial—The Presidential Election of 1876 the Most Perilous in the History of the Country.
THE SEVENTEENTH PRESIDENT.
As provided by the Constitution, Andrew Johnson, Vice-President, took the oath of office as President on the day that Abraham Lincoln died. He was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, December 29, 1808, and his parents were so poor that they did not send him to school at all. When only ten years old, he was apprenticed to a tailor, and anyone who at that time had prophesied that he would some day become President of the United States would have been set down as an idiot or a lunatic.