I was listening to the Washington Post’s podcast for President’s Day and it concluded with a wild quote from Andrew Johnson. Michelle Krowl from the manuscripts division of the Library of Congress read this except from an 1847 letter Andrew Johnson wrote to a friend about his neighbors in Greeneville, Tennessee, where he lived most of his life. At the time he was representing the area in the United States House of Representatives.
“If I should happen to die among the damn spirits that infest Greeneville, my last request before death would be for some friend I would bequeath the last dollar to some Negro to pay — to take my dirty stinking carcass after death out on some mountain peak, and there leave it to be devoured by the vultures and wolves or make a fire sufficiently large to consume the smallest particle that it might pass off and smoke and ride upon the wind in triumph over the God-forsaken and hell-deserving, money-loving, hypocritical, backbiting, Sunday-praying scoundrels of the town of Greeneville.”
You can find this quote on page ten of this transcript.
Find all our Andrew Johnson articles here.
Follow Reconstruction Blog on Social Media:
