Johnson, Eliza

▪ American first lady

née  Eliza McCardle 

born October 4, 1810, Greeneville, Tennessee, U.S.

died January 15, 1876, Greeneville

 American first lady (1865–69), the wife of Andrew Johnson (Johnson, Andrew), 17th president of the United States.

      Eliza McCardle was the only child of John McCardle, a shoemaker and innkeeper, and Sarah Phillips McCardle. She was educated at home and at the Rhea Academy in Greeneville, Tennessee. In 1826 she met Andrew Johnson, an aspiring tailor, and they wed on May 17, 1827. According to local folklore, when she first saw Andrew (as he was driving a blind pony), she remarked, “There goes my beau!” The young couple—she was 17 and he was 18—started a tailor shop and worked together while she encouraged him to continue his education and perfect his oratorical skills. (Contrary to a popular myth, however, she did not teach him to read and write.)

      Although she encouraged his political ambitions, she did not enjoy the limelight that his success focused on her, preferring instead to concentrate her energies on raising their five children (four of whom were born within the first seven years of their marriage) and maintaining the house. While Andrew served in the United States House of Representatives (Representatives, House of) (1843–53), she and the children remained in Tennessee, and she did not make her first trip to Washington, D.C., until 1860, well after Andrew's election to the Senate (1857–62). Indeed, she spent very little time in Washington before her husband became president following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln (Lincoln, Abraham) in April 1865. Poor health—she suffered from tuberculosis—and concern for her two surviving sons, who suffered from alcoholism, increased her predilection to remain in the background.

      As first lady, Eliza left social duties to her daughter, Martha Patterson, who won praise for her simple ways and hard work. Finding the White House (then known as the Executive Mansion) in disrepair, Eliza used a congressional appropriation of $30,000 to refurbish it, and she arranged for two cows to live on the White House lawn to provide fresh milk. Her announcement that she and her family were “plain people from the mountains of Tennessee, brought here through a national calamity” helped to disarm potential critics, who were ready to ridicule the Johnson women for their lack of sophistication.

      From her second-floor room at the White House, Eliza may have exerted more influence over her husband's decisions than was apparent at the time. She routinely read newspapers and shared their contents with her husband, and she closely followed his impeachment by the House and trial in the Senate (though she did not attend the proceedings). Some historians have concluded that Andrew relied on the counsel of his wife and daughters as much as he relied on anyone. After his acquittal she declared, “I knew he'd be acquitted, I knew it.”

      When the Johnson presidency ended in 1869, Eliza and Andrew returned to Greeneville. In 1875 Andrew was elected to the Senate but died later that year. Eliza was too sick to attend his funeral, and she died six months later at her daughter's home, on a farm outside Greeneville. The couple was buried at what is now the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery in Greeneville.

Betty Boyd Caroli

Additional Reading

A brief biography of Eliza Johnson is Nancy Beck Young, “Eliza (McCardle) Johnson,” in Lewis L. Gould (ed.), American First Ladies: Their Lives and Their Legacy (1996), pp. 191–201.

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