Johnson, Andrew (Administration of)

Few presidents have been as poorly understood and regarded as Andrew Johnson (1808–75). Born in poverty in North Carolina, Johnson moved to eastern Tennessee with his family as a boy. He was apprenticed to a tailor in South Carolina and learned that craft in his teens but never received any formal education. Until his marriage, he was completely self-taught but his wife encouraged him to read more widely and taught him mathematics and some computational skills. As a result of his hardscrabble childhood and continuing struggle, Johnson came to ...