Andrew Johnson never expected to be president ... Blacks were to be freed but left to the mercy of white Southerners. His plan of action—to put whites back in charge in the South—set him ...

James Grimes was tormented with doubt. The senator from Iowa couldn’t stand Andrew Johnson, the belligerent, racist president on trial before the Senate, charged with defying Congress and the law.

A Unionist Democrat from Tennessee, Andrew Johnson was put on the ticket by Lincoln in 1864 in an effort to reach union sympathizers in the Border States. Challenges: Andrew Johnson had to navigate ...