With my father, who remained his friend through life, he had entered the state legislature in 1835, and having served ten years in the lower House of Congress, and four years as governor of Tennessee he came back in 1857 to the National Capital, a member of the Upper House.

He was Andrew Johnson.
I knew him from my childhood.

Thrice that I can recall I saw him weep; never did I see him laugh.

Life had been very serious, albeit very successful, to him.

Of unknown parentage, the wife he had married before he was one and twenty had taught him to read.