William Henry Johnson, President Lincoln's Valet
Story Narrative:
The Witnessing York (Pennsylvania) digital project maps sites of deep meaning, reflection, healing and redemption in York County (YoCo) through blurbs, clips and “teachable moment” questions. In southwestern YoCo, Main Street Hanover is the steward of The Heart of Hanover Trail, an interactive walking storyboard tour and leg of the York County Heritage Rail Trail.
On November 18, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln was not feeling well. Our 16th president looked “sallow, sunken-eyed, thin, [and] careworn.”
The long, jostling train journey from Washington, D.C. to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania didn’t help. Our Civil War commander-in-chief likely was falling ill from a deadly virus, a form of smallpox. With Lincoln on his trip to and from Gettysburg was the hard-working William Henry Johnson, the president’s trusted African-American valet and multi-tasker.
They had history.
A freedman, Johnson worked for the Lincolns in Springfield, Illinois. In 1861, Johnson assumed the role of bodyguard when he accompanied Lincoln on a fraught rail journey from Illinois to Washington, D.C. On route, they stealthily changed trains in Baltimore, where rumors of an assassination attempt on the president-elect reached a fever pitch. Lincoln was even dressed in disguise. Throughout his tenure working for Lincoln, depending on the situation at hand, the trusted Johnson served as the president’s groomer, bodyguard, fire-keeper, driver, bootblack, barber, butler, valet, and errand runner. On the morning of November 18, 1863, Lincoln made sure his indispensable man was with him. Lincoln sent a note to the Department of Treasury, where Johnson worked in addition to the White House, that simply said, “William goes with me.”
As they departed D.C., mortality and uncertainty must have been on their minds. Not only were they traveling to the site of the bloodiest battle of the war, which devastated and traumatized the small town of Gettysburg, but Lincoln’s son Tad was diagnosed with smallpox that day. The virus’ epidemic was starting to spread throughout the capital, and the outcome of the war still hung in the balance. Johnson was the only known person of color on the presidential train to Gettysburg. From D.C., their Northern Central Railway train rumbled to Baltimore, then north over the Mason-Dixon Line to New Freedom and Glen Rock before stopping at Hanover Junction in Seven Valleys. There, Lincoln and his entourage, which included Secretary of State William H. Seward, “a bevy of reporters and politicians”, and staffers private secretary John G. Nicolay and adviser John Hay, boarded a Hanover Branch rail train.
Photo courtesy Wikipedia: Abraham Lincoln arriving in Washington; the serving figure (lower left hand corner), is sometimes said to be William H. Johnson but this not documented. Date unknown. Lincoln, Ward Hill Lamon, and detectives traveled a secret route from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C. to prevent an assassination attempt, called the Baltimore Plot.
Asset ID: 2021.08.01
Author: Matthew Jackson
Themes: History, Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, epidemic, war, railroad, freedmen, African American history
Date recorded: August 17, 2021
Story type: Text story
Related traveling exhibition: Crossroads: Change in Rural America
Sponsor or affiliated organization: Witnessing York, Main Street Hanover; Explore York, Trail Towns, Guthrie Memorial Library and Hanover Area Historical Society.
More Information: https://www.witnessingyork.com/about/
