*Impeached* by David D. Stewart

Highly recommended is Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy (2009) by David O. Stewart to those who want or need to know more about the immediate history of the U.S. after Lee's surrender at Appomatox, Lincoln's assassination and Reconstruction.

The Johnson impeachment is complicated and complex and can't be reduced to a soundbite.  That's not the only reason it's not actually taught in American historry classes, whether middle-school, high school or college, though.  The real reason it's not taught is because this event has a starring role in the revisionism of the history of the Civil War, Reconstruction and the causes of the entire epic, which began even  before the War of Southern Aggression was finished -- which ended only with the assassination of President Lincoln by rabid confederate Booth, and the barely avoided impeachment of Johnson, avoided only because of the massive amounts of cash poured into the effort by the confederates, their sympatizers and the lobbyists -- one vote.  This was also revised, via Wilson and others, that rather than a act of veniality, this was as an act of patriotic heroism that saved the nation and the Constitution, an act which outranked Lincoln's efforts by a fair amount, something even JFK bought into 100%,

That the author is a lawyer, who "defended an impeachment trial of a Mississippi judge in the U.S. Senate in 1988," contributes no small amount to his ability to make easily comprehensible -- to an adult, used to thinking, who doesn't suffer ADD, and who has a decent outline of U.S. history -- this hydra-headed, significant event to the general reader.  Stewart cogently summarizes all of it in the first 35 pp, succinctly and clearly.  While a practicing attorney his briefs must have been a joy for his colleagues to read -- trust me on this, that would not be said of most lawyers's briefs.

The rest of the book goes into chronology and detail of the players, characters, the historical context and events.  For those of us who see General Grant as an authentic hero, he does not let us down during this crisis either.  One of the most enjoyable aspects of this work is seeing Grant's military abilities deployed upon the political battleground of the executive and legislative branches of the Capitol.  His close relationship with his other generals like Sheridan and Sherman plays a role as well.  The portrait of Thadeus Stevens, the arch villain of Birth of a Nation, is invaluable.

What is hard reading is the portrait of what happens to the freedmen and women in the defeated confederacy after Lincoln's assassination, during the years of Johnson's regime.  You may think you know, but you likely don 't, not in this detail, and at that Stewart is restrained in his description and detail of the horrors and the scope of the horrors committed against and upon them.

President Grant put a stop to that.  The real Reconstruction then began.

We briefly met David O. Stewart at the Starr Center during our visit there earlier this month.  It just so happened that this book was in my bag but neither of us made the connection at that moment between the man in the office and the book in the bag.  Our encounter was more than pleasant -- it was interesting, leaving both sides wanting more.  So we'll probably meet here in August before our move to Chestertown, while he's visiting Yankee Stadium with his son (though they won't cheer the Yankees!), and working in some of the Aaron Burr archives and collections for his current project, which is Burr's fantasy of carving out his own kingdom in the Louisiana Territory and his treason trial.