Emily Wright Harold (, 1820May 8, 1872) was a 19th-century American wife and mother who lived most of her life in Greeneville, Tennessee. In 1872, Harold was accused (in an anonymous letter) of engaging in an extramarital affair with her neighbor, former U.S. President Andrew Johnson. She subsequently committed suicide by firearm. Johnson was a candidate for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives that year. The alleged sexual relationship, Mrs. Harold's suicide, and an ensuing libel trial all made national headlines.
Background Andrew Johnson's personal life is generally poorly attested in the historical record. The tragic case of Mrs. Harold is no exception; she appears not at all in Robert W. Winston's 1928 biography of Johnson, and warrants but a scant paragraph (in which her name is misspelled) in Hans L. Trefousse's 1989 bio; when that book was published American Heritage magazine noted that "Trefousse resists the temptation to moralize. He puts no credence in the rumors of Johnson's alcoholism...and dismisses stories about Johnson's relationships with women other than his wife, Eliza. Instead, Trefousse lets the facts paint their own unflattering portrait of one of history's least respected Presidents." In her 2011 survey of Johnson's life, Annette Gordon-Reed did not delve into the Harold story but did observe, "Throughout a good part of their near-five-decade marriage, Eliza was not a real presence in her husband's public life. There were rumors of infidelity on Andrew's part, which he denied, but they did not live together much as husband and wife." An illuminating primary source about the state of their marriage may be a letter written by a Confederate soldier charged with removing the Johnson family from occupied Tennessee; he wrote of Eliza, "She is very anxious to remain here with her children and is not at all desirous to go the bosom of 'Andy.'" In a 2001 article about Johnson's troubled son Robert Johnson, historian Paul Bergeron observed that the Johnson family was seemingly "marked by tension and possible antipathy between the parents."
Early life and family Emily Wright was born about May 29, 1820 in Tennessee. According to FamilySearch.org, her parents may have been John and Martha (Powell) Wright. According to newspaper reports at the time of her death, her mother was known as Mrs. Heiskell and lived in Rhea County.
Emily Wright married "Jas. W. Harrold" on November 2, 1837, in Greene County, Tennessee, when she was about 17 years old; James W. Harold was about five years her senior and had been born in Virginia. James W. Harold worked as a tailor in Greeneville in 1850, 1860, and 1870. They had four children who survived infancy:
John W. Harold (born approximately 1838, when Emily was about 18), later studied law and served in the United States Army during the American Civil War. & Mary E. Harold (born approximately 1846, when Emily was 26) Charles Harold (born 1856, when Emily was about 36) Jessie Harold (born 1863, when Emily was about 43)
James W. Harold was appointed postmaster of Greeneville beginning April 1, 1869. His annual salary for this work in 1871 was $690.
Mrs. Harold had been a member of the First Presbyterian Church (Greeneville, Tennessee) for more than 30 years and after her death was described by prominent citizens of Greeneville as "an earnest and consistent Christian, a chaste and faithful wife, a kind and dutiful mother, a charitable neighbor, and a true and noble woman, respected and esteemed by all in the community." She was said to have had the "entire confidence and deep love" of her husband.
Scandal After 50 years of unremarkable provincial life in East Tennessee, Mrs. James W. Harold became nationally infamous in 1872 for accusations that she was involved in an extramarital affair with former U.S. President Andrew Johnson. Johnson had nominally retired from politics following the end of his term of office, and had returned to Greeneville, Tennessee (the place where he had begun his career, where he owned a home and other real estate, and where his wife Eliza McCardle Johnson and daughter Martha Johnson Patterson usually lived). By 1872 Johnson was said to be bored with small-town life and was attempting to re-enter politics, despite a failed United States Senate bid in 1869.
In any case, according to Knoxville newspaper accounts, one Sunday in late April 1872, the Greeneville town postmaster, a merchant and tailor named James W. Harold, received an anonymous letter that asserted that his wife of 35 years had been seduced by Johnson. By one telling, Andrew Johnson and Emily Harold had "had improper intercourse with each other for some time." Their assignations were said to take place in Johnson's library, which was adjacent to his old tailor shop, which was, in turn, adjacent to the home of the Harolds. The Johnsons and the Harolds lived "for many years past, within a few steps of each other." In addition to being neighbors, Harold and Johnson apparently had once been business partners during Johnson's tailoring days. According to one account, "Mr. Harold and Mr. Johnson had been personal and warm friends for more than 30 years." Emily Wright Harold was also said to have been a close friend of Johnson's wife, Eliza McCardle Johnson. It should perhaps be noted that in the 19th century U.S. South there was an "indeterminacy" between seduced and raped.Hutton, T. R. C. Review of Murder and Madness: The Myth of the Kentucky Tragedy, by Matthew G. Schoenbachler. Ohio Valley History, vol. 10 no. 1, 2010, p. 91-92. Project MUSE, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/571226.
According to an 1865 description of Greeneville by Rev. Randall Ross of the 15th Ohio, "Up street [from the main Andrew Johnson house] stands his former tailor shop, with the old sign still on it; and in an old store-room up street is the remains of his library. At present it consists of law books and public documents, most of his more valuable books having been destroyed by the rebel soldiery." In 1878 at the time of the dedication of the Johnson monument at what is now Andrew Johnson National Cemetery a writer from Brooklyn reported, "His library after his return to Greeneville in 1868 was separate from the house and was a large lofty room filled with his papers and law-books. Here he spent a large portion of his time and particularly would he be found poring over some work or engaged in writing long after everybody in town was asleep."
Per a Knoxville paper, after receiving the letter Mr. Harold caught Mrs. Harold leaving the library "late at night" with a blanket shawl covering her head and face; she then attempted to slip into their home through the back door. There was reportedly a confrontation between the couple, who exchanged "high words," and their dispute was loud enough to be overheard. Months later neighbors testified under oath that they had neither seen nor heard anything that was suggestive of infidelity. Another version told in the same newspaper account states that Mr. Harold received the letter, showed it to his church-going wife and told her he disbelieved the accusations contained therein. Mrs. Harold was nonetheless said to be "so indignant she could hardly contain herself" and "almost crazy with excitement...with a gun in her hand, declaring she intended to shoot her traducers." As for the former president:
In all versions of the initial disclosure, the "idle gossips" of Greeneville (a town of about 3,000 people) both believe and spread "half a dozen or more" versions of the Harold–Johnson affair, and generally assign responsibility to Johnson. Harold is typically described as a victim of "seduction" and/or "atrocious calumny." The most pointed and public version, published in an Indianapolis newspaper 10 days after Harold's death, was entitled "Andy Johnson as Seducer" and claimed that "Great indignation is expressed among the citizens of Greeneville at the ex-President, and many of the best citizens refuse to speak to him on the street." By the end of May the story was widespread enough that, in a letter to Johnson, one Thomas W. Dick Bullock offered his sympathy in regard to the "base and malicious slander perpetrated by some designing persons".
Regarding Johnson's overall reputation in East Tennessee, and the claims and denials of "great indignation" in 1872, it may be germane that when Andrew Johnson returned to Greeneville three years prior (back in March 1869, after the end of his presidency), the mayor of Greeneville refused to participate in the welcome-home ceremony and procession. Per a newspaper report published March 21, 1869:
Suicide
As one thesis paper on Johnson's post-Presidential return to politics described events subsequent to the letter to James Harold, "Whether the accusation was true or not has not been established, but its venom was so damaging that Harold committed suicide." There is some conflict about the details, but according to most accounts, Emily Harold died early in the morning of May 8, 1872, in Sweetwater, Tennessee, while visiting her sickly mother, by a gunshot fired from a pistol that belonged to her son. The son, John W. Harold, was an U.S. Army officer described as a man of "high character and excellent traits." He was visiting his family on a leave of absence from the military and had been told nothing of rumors surrounding his parents and Andrew Johnson.
Initial accounts had it that Emily Harold's family heard three gunshots, and that she died from a shot to the heart and/or a chest wound. In these tellings, the top of her dress caught fire from proximity to the gunpowder and heat. Later newspaper accounts had it that she shot herself in the head. Emily Wright Harold was 51 years, 11 months, and nine days old at the time of her death.
According to an extensive Knoxville newspaper report about the whole saga, her mother saw Emily Harold take her son's "small pistol" from his satchel; the mother presumed she was taking it to deliver to the son. Harold then went out into a "thicket" about beyond the house, from which three shots rang out. She was found to have shot herself through the heart and left breast. She was past saving when she was found; the first shot was thought to be the fatal one and her clothes were on fire when she was discovered. She was brought into the house but died therein, without speaking any last words. The son did not know why his mother had taken her own life until, at the funeral, Rev. S. V. McCorkle, the minister of the Greeneville Presbyterian church where Harold had worshipped for decades, "very justly and properly referred in severe language to the terrible lesson the event had afforded the idle slanderers who had brought about the trouble." The most widely distributed account of her death stated, "She was the wife of a warm friend of Johnson's and an exemplary Christian...the cruel and unfounded report of her seduction drove her to suicide in a moment of temporary insanity." This comment on the matter was printed in the New York Times, among other outlets. That the Times—noted to be a publication "hostile" to Johnson—declared it "cruel and unfounded" was considered a strong statement against the overall veracity of the infidelity accusations. Another newspaper wrote "in an hour of mental derangement with a burning consciousness of innocence and without power to resist the temptation she took her life." According to a widely republished post hoc report entitled "An Atrocious Calumny" that was devoted to absolving the parties of infidelity charges, and laying all blame on the "cold-blooded villain who invented the slander," the existence of the report had "fallen with crushing weight" on the "innocent heart" of Mrs. Harold.