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Andrew Johnson

  ========> UNDER CONSTRUCTION <========
   
President #17. 
 Lived: 1808·1875.   Served: 1865·1869.  
Timeline:  <== 2008
|<== 1776

Maladies = big head and chest · typhoid fever · not a drunkard · snored  ·· Odds & Ends  ·· Resources
     Maladies and Conditions[Top]
Anthropometrics
big head and chest		 "massive head and deep chest" [6a]
Infections
typhoid fever		 Had typhoid fever during the winter of 1864-1865, and was "slow to recover from the fever" [6a]
Alcohol
not a drunkard		 Johnson was ill on March 4, 1865 -- the day he was to be inaugurated Vice-President and Lincoln president. He wanted to skip the ceremony, but Lincoln persuaded him otherwise [1a]. To steady his nerves, Johnson had "three stiff drinks of whisky [sic]" and became drunk [6b]. He walked into the inauguration ceremonies red-faced, on the arm of outgoing Vice President Hannibal Hamlin [4a]. Then, during his speech, he talked too much and rather incoherently, leading to his reputation as the "drunken tailor." Lincoln defended him: "I have known Andrew Johnson for many years. He made a slip the other day, but you need not be scared; Andy ain't a drunkard" [1a].

Nevertheless, the consequences of this episode persisted. [More]

Sleep
snored		 Reliability of this information is uncertain. [3]
     Odds & Ends[Top]
     Resources[Top]

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Books (ranked by Amazon.com sales)More  
 
Andrew Johnson and Reconstruction
Eric L. McKitrick		 The Reconstruction Presidents
Brooks D. Simpson		 Andrew Johnson: Seventeenth President of the United States (Encyclopedia of Presidents)
Zachary Kent
 
Resources used by Dr. Zebra
  1. Boller, Paul F. Jr. Presidential Anecdotes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1981. ISBN 0-19-502915-1 @ Amazon   [a] p. 150

  2. Burlingame, Michael. The Inner World of Abraham Lincoln. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1994. ISBN 0-252-02086-3 @ Amazon   [a] p. 168

  3. Dugan, James. Bedlam in the boudoir. Colliers. 22 Feb. 1947; pages 17, 69-70.
        Credibility is dubious. Just before a list of Presidents, the article states: "Twenty of the 32 Presidents ... are proved or believed on a thick web of circumstance to have been nocturnal nuisances in the White House."

  4. Helm, Katherine. The True Story of Mary, Wife of Lincoln. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1928.   [a] p. 244 [b] pp. 244-245

  5. Kunhardt DM, Kunhardt PB Jr. Twenty Days: A Narrative in Text and Pictures of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the Twenty Days and Nights That Followed. New York: Castle Books, 1965.   [a] p. 108

  6. Leech, Margaret. Reveille in Washington. Chicago: Time-Life Books, 1962 (Original (C) 1941). ISBN 0-8094-3556-X @ Amazon   [a] p. 451 [b] p. 453 [c] pp. 453-454 [d] p. 452
        A vivid account of Washington, DC during the Civil War. Won the Pulitzer Prize.

  7. The Andrew Johnson web page  at the White House.

  8.  (0 matches when checked in November 2003)
Alternate index terms: Medical history of President Johnson.  [Top]
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