Charles Johnson

Charles Johnson (February 19, 1830 – April 4, 1863) was the first-born son of 17th U.S. President Andrew Johnson and his wife Eliza McCardle Johnson. He died at age 33 near Nashville, during the American Civil War, while his father was serving as military governor of Tennessee.

Charles Johnson was remembered as his mother's favorite. Charles Johnson's death is sometimes mentioned as one of the causes for Eliza Johnson's self-isolation during the family's White House years. He was noted for both his conviviality but also his "dissipation," For about a year he was a partner in a newspaper called the Greeneville Spy, and circa 1857 he co-owned a drugstore and worked as a druggist. Charles and his brother Robert also managed their father's business affairs and real estate when Andrew Johnson was away from Tennessee. But that same year, he also visited Charleston, South Carolina, for the 1860 Democratic National Convention and had "gotten on a spree" that had troubled the family, When Tennessee went for the Confederacy, both Southern Unionist Johnson sons were wanted men, their brother-in-law David T. Patterson was imprisoned, and their brother-in-law Daniel Stover, a leader of the East Tennessee bridge burners, would have been summarily executed by CSA troops had he been captured.

Andrew Johnson was made military governor of Tennessee by President Lincoln and the U.S. Senate on March 5, 1862. Charles apparently traveled with him to the capital in the fall of 1862, where he enlisted in the federal army.

Death Charles Johnson died at Nashville during the American Civil War after being thrown from a horse. As one bio put it, his death was "under circumstances that were never quite clear." Another account said he was on duty at camp in the suburbs of Nashville when the horse he was riding "became restive" and then reared and fell on top of him, which caused the fatal injuries, and that he lingered for a "few hours."

An account published in 1891 stated, "Of the three bright, promising sons born to [Andrew Johnson] all died victims of the same enemy that carried the illustrious father awaythe bottle. One of the young men was a dear fellow who I knew and loved well. One day during the war he was toppled from his horse on the streets of Nashville, Tenn. He was picked up with a broken skull."

According to Paul Bergeron, a University of Tennessee historian and the last of three major editors of The Papers of Andrew Johnson, "Charles...had been cursed for many years with a serious drinking problem. Many believed he was drunk on the day of his fatal accident." The family was notified by telegram from Tennessee Secretary of State Edward H. East.