William Henry Johnson (valet)

[1] Once there, he was employed in various jobs, part-time as President's valet and barber, and later, following strife with others on the White House staff, as a messenger for the Treasury Department at $600 (equivalent to US$20,347 in 2023) per year.

[6] Abraham Lincoln employed Johnson as a valet and driver in Springfield, Illinois during the time of the 1860 United States presidential election.

Johnson announced people as they entered the house and directed them to the parlour to meet Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln.

If Lincoln needed Johnson's assistance for errands or tasks, he would send a message to his supervisor, Samuel Yorke At Lee, at the Treasury.

[11] Before working at the Treasury each workday morning, Johnson went to the White House and shaved and dressed Lincoln, which provided extra income.

[5] I think Lincoln's constant interest in William Johnson shows us, even more than do some of his greatest public deeds and much heralded acts, the great heart of this man.

[Basler, Collected Works, V, 33] In 1862, Johnson accompanied Lincoln to the Antietam Battlefield after the battle and the Confederate Army had left the area.

While many modern accounts have placed Johnson's grave in Arlington National Cemetery, all such claims are ultimately based on the same, almost certainly incorrect assumption by the historian Roy P.

"[21] In 1977, Basler admitted, however, that he had originally decided to search Arlington "on a hunch," and that he had no evidence connecting the occupant of that grave (or even the cemetery at large) to Lincoln's valet of the same name.

[22] In 2006, Gabor Boritt repeated Basler's original anecdote, adding, without substantiation, that Lincoln himself had ordered that Johnson's headstone be inscribed with the epitaph, "Citizen.

"[23] In 2010, Eric Foner in turn cited Boritt's work, further adding, also without substantiation, that Lincoln "chose the one-word-inscription [as] a direct refutation of the Dred Scott decision.

Magness and Page observed that "Citizen" appears on all headstones in Section 27 at Arlington, having been used as a synonym for "Civilian" in the brief period before the cemetery became an exclusively military one.

[25] William H. Johnson was a character in the 2012 film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, played by actor Anthony Mackie.

Abraham Lincoln arriving in Washington; the figure in the lower left hand corner is sometimes said to be William H. Johnson but this not documented. Date unknown. Lincoln, Ward Hill Lamon, and detectives traveled a secret route from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C. to prevent an assassination attempt, called the Baltimore Plot .
The train that transported Lincoln to Washington for his 1861 inauguration
The White House (also called the Executive Mansion) during the American Civil War
Lincoln with George B. McClellan and staff at the Grove Farm after the Battle of Antietam . Notable figures (from left) are 1. Col. Delos Sackett ; 4. Gen. George W. Morell ; 5. Alexander S. Webb , Chief of Staff, V Corps; 6. McClellan;. 8. Dr. Jonathan Letterman ; 10. Lincoln; 11. Henry J. Hunt ; 12. Fitz John Porter ; 15. Andrew A. Humphreys ; 16. Capt. George Armstrong Custer .
Graves of African-American civilians, marked "Citizen", in Arlington National Cemetery [ 19 ]