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:
“Washington, February 8th, 1866.
“Hon. James R. Doolittle, United States Senate
“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.