Emily Harold

"[4] An illuminating primary source about the state of their marriage may be a letter written by a Confederate soldier charged with removing the Johnson family from occupied Tennessee; he wrote of Eliza, "She is very anxious to remain here with her children and is not at all desirous to go the bosom of 'Andy.

[19] After 50 years of unremarkable provincial life in East Tennessee, Mrs. James W. Harold became nationally infamous in 1872 for accusations that she was involved in an extramarital affair with former U.S. President Andrew Johnson.

[21] In any case, according to Knoxville newspaper accounts, one Sunday in late April 1872, the Greeneville town postmaster, a merchant and tailor named James W. Harold, received an anonymous letter that asserted that his wife of 35 years had been seduced by Johnson.

Mrs. Harold was nonetheless said to be "so indignant she could hardly contain herself" and "almost crazy with excitement...with a gun in her hand, declaring she intended to shoot her traducers.

"[28] By the end of May the story was widespread enough that, in a letter to Johnson, one Thomas W. Dick Bullock offered his sympathy in regard to the "base and malicious slander perpetrated by some designing persons".

Per a newspaper report published March 21, 1869:[30] The entire affair passed off very successfully, and but one trivial incident occurred in the arrangement of the order of exercises...the Mayor of Greeneville peremptorily refused to participate in the ceremonies—making some absurd allegation that ex-President Johnson had gotten himself into an awkward predicament, or something to that effect, and he would have nothing to do with it, but would resign in favor of someone else.

The Mayor's refusal was regarded as a piece of ill-mannered boorishness...and did not reflect the feelings of the citizens of Greeneville, who delight to honor men of Mr. Johnson's independence and patriotism.As one thesis paper on Johnson's post-Presidential return to politics described events subsequent to the letter to James Harold, "Whether the accusation was true or not has not been established, but its venom was so damaging that Harold committed suicide.

"[31] There is some conflict about the details, but according to most accounts, Emily Harold died early in the morning of May 8, 1872, in Sweetwater, Tennessee,[32] while visiting her sickly mother, by a gunshot fired from a pistol that belonged to her son.

[19][11] Initial accounts had it that Emily Harold's family heard three gunshots, and that she died from a shot to the heart and/or a chest wound.

S. V. McCorkle, the minister of the Greeneville Presbyterian church where Harold had worshipped for decades, "very justly and properly referred in severe language to the terrible lesson the event had afforded the idle slanderers who had brought about the trouble.

"[10] The most widely distributed account of her death stated, "She was the wife of a warm friend of Johnson's and an exemplary Christian...the cruel and unfounded report of her seduction drove her to suicide in a moment of temporary insanity.

[18] "Men of prominence in both political parties" in Greeneville circulated a letter "unsolicited and without consulting either of the injured families" denouncing the infidelity report as false.

[18] One of the signatories, a lawyer and judge named H. H. Ingersoll, also wrote to the Indianapolis Journal with a point-by-point denial/refutation of the "Andy Johnson as Seducer" report.

In late July 1872, as Andrew Johnson was stumping through the state in hopes of winning a seat in the 1872–73 United States House of Representatives elections in Tennessee, Emily Harold's widower, James W. Harold, and his allies had dedicated themselves to identifying the author of the poison-pen letter that had initially triggered the crisis back in April.

And then if the rights of either party should require it, a full and accurate transcript of the evidence in the case will be furnished for publication, Respectfully and truly, Felix A. Reeve, J. G. Deaderick, John Allison Jr., A.

The truth of the charges against Johnson and Mrs. Harold was investigated, and some swearing done, of rather a plain character, as is reported, by two negroes and a white man.

Harne has four lawyers, enough to sadly tangle any case...[41]Among the three men charged with perjury was James G. Haynes, "principal witness for the defense in the effort at justification," who was committed to jail on August 2.

[44] Haynes was a 40-year-old white resident of Greeneville; circa 1870 he lived with his aged father—both men listed their occupations as house carpenters—his wife Sarah, and his three children, Josephine, Landon and Cicero.

[50] Andrew Johnson seemingly referenced Emily Harold in a speech he made in Brownsville, Tennessee, on October 17, 1872, eliding her as a Mrs. Somebody Else: "You have heard a great deal said about Mrs. Surratt, and about Mrs. Somebody else..."[51] In this formulation, Johnson aligns her with an innkeeper who had been convicted of conspiring to assassinate Abraham Lincoln and subsequently hanged, suggesting that he was unfairly accused of wronging both women.

)[52] Johnson suffered a punishing defeat in the November 5, 1872[53] balloting for the state's at-large seat in the House, placing third of three behind Radical Republican Congressman Horace Maynard and Democratic candidate and former Confederate general Benjamin F. Cheatham, despite "crisscrossing Tennessee employing the stump-speaking style that had catapulted him to national office many years before.

"[54][e] In 1873, James W. Harold requested compensation from the Southern Claims Commission for 50 locustwood fence rails and 15 cords of firewood that he stated were taken from him by Gen. F. J.

John W. Harold served in the U.S. Army until his death in 1879; he left a two-thirds of his personal estate to his brother Charles and one-third to his sister Jessie.

[63]In 1891, almost 20 years after the 1872 scandal, someone by the name of M. V. Moore wrote a scathing retrospective biography of Andrew Johnson that was published in the Philadelphia Weekly Times and reprinted in the Memphis Public Ledger.

The tale of Mrs. Harold resurfaced and Moore wrote that the neighbors even charged the late Andrew Johnson "with violating the chastity of his neighbor's wife":[64] A stranger visiting Greeneville, Tenn., the old home of Mr. Johnson, and investigating facts, will be surprised to find in what open and pronounced detestation the morals and memory of the man are held there.

When the vile and painful slander became publicly known, the woman, in the endeavor to escape the disgrace and shame brought to her own household, ended her career in a sudden and horrible suicide.

But her seducer, the distinguished man, appeared utterly indifferent to the shameful and tragic events which produced a profound and shocking sensation in East Tennessee, where the parties are known.