March 26, 1863---Andrew Johnson becomes Military Governor of Tennessee

MARCH 26, 1863:      

Tennessee was badly split by the Civil War, providing just as many Unionists to the Northern cause as Confederates to the Southern. Among those who resisted secession was Andrew Johnson, who served as U.S. Senator from that State. After the secession, Johnson retained his office in the U.S. Congress. When his term expired on this day, a grateful Abraham Lincoln appointed him as Military Governor of Tennessee. Just over two years later, Johnson would find himself behind the President's desk. Really unfit for the high office, a severe alcoholic, and unable to tread the straight line tightrope between Northern liberal Radical Republicans and newly-readmitted conservative Southern Democrats, Johnson was the first President of the United States to be impeached.