President Johnson’s youngest daughter entered the White House a widow, recently bereaved of her husband, who fell a soldier in the Union cause. His wife, who at seventeen was his teacher, when “in the silent watches of the night the youthful couple studied together,” when their weary tasks were done, came to the White House broken in health and spirits, through the suffering and bereavements through which she had passed. She was never seen but on one public occasion at the White House, that of a children’s party, given to her grandchildren. At that time she was seated in one of the republican court-chairs of satin and ebony. She did not rise when the children or guests were presented, but simply said, “My dears, I am an invalid,” and her sad, pale face and sunken eyes proved the expression. She is an invalid now; but an observer would say, contemplating her, “A noble woman, God’s best gift to man.” It was that woman who taught the President, after she became his wife; and in all their early years she was his assistant counsellor and guide. Liable to be arrested for the slightest offense; ofttimes insulted by the rabble, Mrs. Johnson performed the perilous journey from Greenville to Nashville. Few who were not actual participators in the civil war can form an estimate of the trials of this noble woman. Invalid, as she was, she yet endured exposure and anxiety, and passed through the extended lines of hostile armies, never uttering a hasty word, or, by her looks, betraying in the least degree her harrowed feelings. She is remembered by friend and foe as a lady of benign countenance and sweet and winning manners. During her husband’s administration, the heavy duties and dubious honors of the White House were performed by her oldest daughter, Martha Patterson, the wife of Senator Patterson of Tennessee. That lady’s utterance, soon after entering the White House, was a key to her character, yet scarcely a promise of her own distinguished management of the President’s house. She said: “We are plain people from the mountains of Tennessee, called here for a short time by a national calamity. I trust too much will not be expected of us.” The career of Mrs. Lincoln had chilled the people to expect little from the feminine administrator of the White House; but from Martha Patterson they received much, and that of the most unobtrusive and noble service.