I feel incompetent to perform duties... which have been so unexpectedly thrown upon me.

Shy and retiring by nature Eliza Johnson usually remained in Greeneville during Johnson's political rise. The new president favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union.

A Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket Johnson came to office as the Civil War concluded. He became Governor of Tennessee for four years and was elected by the legislature to the Senate in 1857.