Page:The part taken by women in American history.djvu/300

Rh account of the impeachment trial of Mr. Johnson their last days in the White House were those of intense grief and anxiety. After their return to Greenville, Mr. Johnson became a candidate for the Senate as successor to Mr. Brownlow. He was defeated, but his indomitable will caused him to become a candidate the second time, when he was successfully elected and took his seat at the beginning of the session, December, 1874. He occupied that position during the extraordinary session which followed, when he made a speech of great importance to himself in vindication of his course as President of the United States. This speech was of such a personal character that it is of great doubt whether it should have been made or not. Returning home in midsummer, he was stricken with illness and on the morning of the 31st of July, 1875, he died in the home of his youngest daughter near Greenville, Tennessee.

Mrs. Johnson survived him but six months and died at the home of her eldest daughter, Mrs. Patterson, on the 13th of January, 1876. She was buried beside her husband. Their children have erected a magnificent monument to the memory of Andrew and Eliza Johnson. Mrs. Johnson was a noble woman and lived a life of self-denial and self-sacrifice.

Julia Dent Grant was a Missourian by birth, being the daughter of Judge Dent, of St. Louis, who resided on a large farm near that city. Here Mrs. Grant spent her girlhood. Her youngest, brother, Frederick J. Dent, was appointed to West Point and formed a strong attachment for his classmate, Ulysses S. Grant, who had been appointed to the Military Academy from Ohio: This intimacy caused young Grant to come with his caciet friend young Dent, to St. Louis, when they