Robert Johnson (February 22, 1834 – April 22, 1869) was the fourth-born child of Andrew Johnson and Eliza McCardle, a lawyer by profession, one-term Tennessee state legislator, Union Army cavalry officer during the American Civil War, and Secretary to the President of the United States. Johnson suffered from severe and chronic alcohol dependence. Despite having played little to no role in commanding his company during the war, Johnson was breveted brigadier general by his father. He died by overdose of alcohol and laudanum in the family home in Greeneville, Tennessee, six weeks after the end of President Johnson's term in office.
Early life Robert Johnson, called Bob, was born in the family's Water Street house in Greeneville, the county seat of Greene County, Tennessee. He is said to have briefly studied at Franklin College during the winter of 1850–51, but within short order returned home "for unknown reasons." During this time period he also apparently experienced some hemorrhaging of the lungs, possibly consequent to a tuberculosis infection. Johnson was a lawyer by profession, first licensed in 1856, having studied under an attorney named Robert McFarland. However, according to one contemporary newspaper account of his life, he was "never distinguished by his father's strong characteristics" in this profession. Robert and his brother Charles Johnson also managed their father's business affairs and real estate when Andrew Johnson was away from Tennessee. Early in his life, Robert Johnson had "seemed to be a responsible young adult, one upon whom his father depended for a variety of things." He attended the 1856 Democratic National Convention.Johnson served in the 33rd General Assembly of the Tennessee state legislature, for the term of 1859–1861, representing the "floating district" of Greene, Hancock, Hawkins, and Jefferson counties. According to the newspaper of dedicated Andy Johnson hater Parson Brownlow, "It is said that a principal object in trying to get Bob Johnson into the Legislature is to nominate, through that body, his daddy for the Presidency." Robert Johnson attended the 1860 Democratic National Convention in Charleston, South Carolina. Andrew Johnson was the only member of the U.S. Senate from a secessionist state who stayed loyal to the federal government; like his father, Robert Johnson was a "consistent, fearless and uncompromising Southern Unionist," and he made a notable speech at a courthouse in Nashville in defense of "Union, the Constitution and the Laws" just before the Tennessee ordinance of secession. In June 1861, he was a delegate from Greene County to the pro-Union East Tennessee Convention. As a vocal Southern Unionist, Johnson (along with his brothers, and his brothers-in-law David T. Patterson and Dan Stover) was in genuine danger in Tennessee in 1861—correspondents informed Andrew Johnson, safe in Washington, that Robert Johnson was under threat of arrest and even hanging. During the early months of the American Civil War, Johnson was hidden from Confederates by a Greeneville farmer named Robert Carter, and may have also sheltered with one or more of the Union-aligned guerrilla bands working in the mountains. Bob Johnson later told a group of fellow Union-aligned East Tennesseans of having "scouted for months in the mountains of his native country, hunted from place to place, like a felon." On February 27, 1862, it was reported that he had arrived at a Union camp at Camp Garber on Flat Lick, Kentucky, after a two-week-long journey through parts of Tennessee still controlled by Confederates.
Union Army Robert Johnson joined the Union Army at Camp Dennison (near Cincinnati, Ohio), in February 1862 for three years' service, being commissioned Colonel of the 4th Tennessee Volunteer Regiment, which he organized. He nominally commanded said unit, which was eventually mounted and redesignated 1st Tennessee Cavalry Regiment, in the Western theater of the American Civil War.
In March 1862 he left from Washington for Nashville, with his father, newly named as military governor of Tennessee, Johnson's secretary William A. Browning, and two Tennessee Congressmen, Horace Maynard, and Emerson Etheridge. In summer 1862, "Andrew Johnson exchanged communications with General George W. Morgan, begging him to watch over Robert and to encourage him to do his duty. The general responded with positive news." Years later, an Ohio newspaper writer wrote that circa October 1862, as the outnumbered federal army abandoned the Cumberland Gap and retreated to safer ground in Ohio, "between Portland and Gallipolis, the military authorities forbade every doggery keeper on the road letting [Robert Johnson] have any liquor, on account of his violent character when drunk."
On November 14, 1862, he was at the Union barracks in Cincinnati, Ohio, with his unit, where he made a speech to a couple of hundred East Tennessee refugees, and had dinner at the Burnet House hotel with politicians and military officers, including Horace Maynard; his son Lt. Col. Edward Maynard, 6th Tennessee; Col. Joseph Cooper, 6th Tennessee; and the redoubtable Parson Brownlow. Johnson, who was , was said to be known as the "little big man" and during his speech was wearing the "blue jeans" common to the soldiery, but with the yellow stripe on the leg denoting cavalry. On December 6, 1862, the occasion of the organization of the 1st Tennessee as cavalry (rather than infantry), Johnson presented the regiment with a "splendid flag" inscribed with the words For Chattanooga, Knoxville and Greeneville, "indicating the determination of the regiment to assist in driving the rebels out of Tennessee, and redeeming the State." The 34-star American flag, also inscribed Johnson's 1st Tennessee Cavalry and "bound round the edge with yellow silk fringe," was produced by Hamlin of Cincinnati, "the prince of military furnishers in the West."
On April 4, 1863, Robert Johnson's older brother Charles Johnson, an assistant surgeon with the 10th Tennessee Infantry, died at Nashville after being thrown from a horse. Robert Johnson was probably the only family member to attend the funeral in Middle Tennessee; part of his regiment participated in the funeral procession. On April 18, 1863, a New York newspaper published a small blurb stating, "The story about the capture by the rebels of Col. Robert Johnson, son of Gov. Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, was fabricated. He is in Nashville, attending to his duties." Five days later, a Chicago paper reported that Johnson "reported captured by the rebels, is safe in Nashville." Following Charles Johnson's death, Robert Johnson's drinking became problematic that enough that Brigadier General William S. Rosecrans wrote Andrew Johnson, who had been appointed military governor of Tennessee by Abraham Lincoln, that "Robert has been drinking so as to become a subject of remark everywhere." Rosecrans also personally beseeched Robert Johnson to "cease the habit." The regimental history puts the date of Johnson's resignation "for ill health" on May 31, 1863, and includes the remark, "He was a kind officer and good to the men." James Patton Brownlow, the 20-year-old son of Andrew Johnson's longtime nemesis, William Gannaway Brownlow, replaced Robert Johnson as colonel. Brownlow had joined the regiment as a private, subsequently promoted to captain of a company, and then was made a lieutenant colonel; according to the 1902 regimental history, which does not otherwise record Johnson's troubles. Upon Johnson's resignation Brownlow was promoted immediately, "a promotion he well-deserved, since he was the real commander." The history associates Johnson's name primarily with general troop movements and regimental administration, while Brownlow's name generally appears in tales of sabre charges and daring raids.
Per the editors of The Papers of Andrew Johnson, in May 1863, the month following Charles Johnson's death, Robert had been placed on "detached duty, first to raise a brigade, in which he was unsuccessful, and then for unspecified activities at Nashville..." In November 1863, Andrew Johnson wrote to Robert Johnson demanding that he resign entirely from the service of the Union Army:
Johnson apparently resigned brigade and regimental duties for good in February 1864, stating that it was "for reasons, purely of a private nature." Another account has it that Robert Johnson resigned on May 31, 1864. His resignation letter stated that he had been "solicited to undertake and perform" civilian work and that his departure was in the best interests of the regiment. After the war Johnson was brevetted Brigadier General with rank from March 13, 1865, apparently despite the fact that he was "rarely in command of his regiment and was never in a battle."
In the summer of 1864, as Andrew Johnson was being awarded a spot on Lincoln's national ticket, Robert Johnson and his mother Eliza sought out a temperance reformer and physician in Boston named Dr. Dio Lewis. In January 1865, along with his brother-in-law David T. Patterson, he was one of the 12 Greene County delegates to the Union State Convention that repealed secession, abolished slavery, and restored Tennessee to the United States.
Presidency of Andrew Johnson
1865–1866 According to a letter from Martha Patterson to Andrew Johnson, at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Robert was "in his usual condition" and apparently so out of it that he was unaware "of the awful calamity." In June 1865 President Johnson sent a telegram to his old friend Samuel Milligan, "I trust in God you can do something with R— for I have almost despaired. If anyone can exert any influence with him, you can."
As Andrew Johnson settled into the duties of the presidency, apparently his wife Eliza McCardle had Robert Johnson summoned to Washington, D.C. and employed as a personal secretary to the President. Johnson arrived in D.C. on Saturday, August 5, 1865 in the company of Patterson, his widowed sister Mary Stover, and her three children, who were 10, eight and five years old. He was officially appointed Johnson's personal secretary in November 1865, replacing William A. Browning, who had been appointed secretary of legation to Mexico. Per one account, Mrs. Johnson had hoped that under "the personal influence of his sisters and herself would reclaim him but alas she found his new position, in its surroundings, a still heavier dead weight to her hopes. Clever genial 'Bob,' the young man who had the ear of the President at any time, was everybody's friend. A crowd followed him wherever he went. The choicest viands of Willard's and Welcker's were set before him, miniature rivers were made to float with wine..." A different report asserted that it was in the "corrupt and vicious society" of Washington, where Johnson was "petted and popular," that he first contracted serious "habits of dissipation." A third account had it that "he was feted and flattered by those who hoped to use him, and led into habits which eventually rendered him a wreck. He was a good-natured, genial young man, and probably without an enemy in the world save himself." The keepers of Andrew Johnson's presidential papers confirm that during his time in office Robert Johnson was the indeed recipient of countless letters, variously seeking favor, reporting on family, financial, and political news, and/or hoping to communicate with the president through him. On December 5, R. Johnson read to the Congress the 1865 State of the Union; the text had been written by historian George Bancroft.