William A. Browning

[1] Browning is mostly remembered today for being the recipient of a note from Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth.

[10] A Memphis newspaper wrote at the time, "The appointment of Col. Browning to so important an office is a most proper acknowledgment of his eminent worth and executive ability.

"[10] On the Fourth of July 1864, Browning read the Declaration of Independence as part of a Union celebration at Nashville, following a parade that included "a procession over a mile long, consisting of the 31st Wisconsin, 13th regulars, 10th Tennessee, 5th Iowa cavalry, several batteries of artillery, the Fire Department, [and] citizens on foot and on horseback.

[15][16][17] The cause of death was said to be, variously, an "inflammation of the bowels"[5] or "a severe attack of inflammatory rheumatism, which resulted in paralysis.

[9] Upon hearing the news of his death, Andrew Johnson's daughters Martha Patterson and Mary Stover, who served as his political hostesses, canceled the White House public receptions planned for the week and were said to have been "at the residence of Col. Browning most of the day.

"[20] After Andrew Johnson's son Robert Johnson died of an overdose in 1869, an anonymous columnist wrote a widely reprinted recollection of some of the figures of the Johnson era, including Browning:[21] Browning was one of the handsomest men in the world, tall, muscular, finely formed with an open pleasing countenance and a complexion as clear and a skin as fine as Ireland or Nantucket gives to the fairest of women.

He had graduated at Yale College and was a fine belles lettres scholar and a man of many accomplishments.

Soon afterwards he shut himself up in a room and deliberately drank whisky until it killed him.On April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth left a note at Kirkwood House (where Andrew Johnson and William A. Browning had rooms) that read, "Don't wish to disturb you Are you at home?

J. Wilkes Booth" Browning later testified about finding the note and that Vice President Johnson was home that day at 5 p.m. and stayed in the rest of the evening.