The Mockingbird's Ballad

"'Pilgrims in the cause of freedom, comrades in arms, I bid you farewell.'"

"The Gen'l. is going to join up with Jeff Davis as he moves south in front of the Yankees. I ain't got nowhere to go so I'm going with him. Near 600 of us are sticking."

And then he went to this notation.

"June 1, 1865, Ft. Delaware, Del. Some of Miss Barton's people came through Sunday afternoon. Gave out small parcels of writing paper, pencils, soap and hard candy. Preachers also came. A Universalist came to my cell. Two guards flanked him. He gave me four pamphlets and said 'My God is one of love not vengeance. Brother, our God is not partial. Read these and learn of our Father's love and salvation.' His words struck me hard after he left. I remembered a preacher came through Lincoln County when I was twelve or so. Preached on the courthouse steps. He didn't scream. Talked just loud enough for the twenty or so folk to hear. I thought that was a strange way for a preacher to preach. Don't remember what he said. Didn't care then."

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Lincoln was dead. Old Andy Johnson of Tennessee who'd embarrassed the man who had selected him to be his vice-presidential candidate on the "Union Party" ticket in 1864 was in Mr. Lincoln's White House office now. Appointed Military Governor of Tennessee in March 1862 with the rank of brigadier general, Johnson had dealt roughly with Nashville rebels, made a fortress of Strickland's majestic state capitol building and widened the Union hold on his home state.

At their inauguration in March 1864, Johnson was feverish, recovering from typhoid fever and had taken one to many shots of whiskey to brace him up in an overheated, standing room only, US Senate chamber. His skill as an accomplished stump speaker was overcome and corrupted by the whiskey, his illness, the heat, the crowd and the occasion.

An orphan boy, whose wife taught him to read and write competently when he was 18, had come a long way from abject poverty, isolation and the opposition of his neighbors. He'd stayed loyal to the Union after Sumpter. His life in public life had been as an archtypical populist striving to improve the status and life of Tennessee's working folk. He deeply hated the southern oligarchy that had duped Southerners.

One of his earliest efforts in congress in the 1840's was to introduce a Homestead Act so that those who would improve land on America's frontiers could have their own place. Lincoln signed the Homestead Act in 1862 after nearly two decades of effort by Johnson.

The Washington power brokers and national papers protested to Lincoln about the shameful behavior of his unworthy vice-president. His response was simple, "Andy ain't no drunk." Several days later John Wilkes Booth killed Johnson's defender and Johnson became president.