Andrew Johnson, photographed by Matthew Brady sometime between 1860 and 1875, was sworn in as president of the United States on April 15, 1865 (Matthew Brady Collection, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

Andrew Johnson, of Tennessee, is now President of the United States. The mysterious purposes of Divine Providence, far beyond the extremest perception of man’s mere judgment, in shaping the ends his wisdom deems to be wisest for our chastisement or in promoting our good, will chasten us while humbling us in the dust in the bereavement the People have sustained through that most wicked act, the bold and daring assassination of the President of the United States. Such an act of perfidy and atrocity has no parallel in the annals of deep and damning crime. The world will stand aghast in horror and detestation of the brutal murder, when the terrible tidings will have reached earth’s remotest extremity.

— The Constitutional Union newspaper, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Monday, April 17, 1865

That opening paragraph of Philadelphia’s Constitutional Union article, “The New President,” illustrates both the State of the Union and the state of mind of the average American during the first days after the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln—the collective and individual states of bewilderment and grief while looking back and reflecting on Lincoln’s life and death while also worrying about what the future held as a new leader was introduced to the nation.

That new leader—President Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), who had been quietly sworn in as the seventeenth president of the United States on the same day that Lincoln died—April 15, 1865—had worked his way up from an early-career job as mayor of a local town in Tennessee to a later-life election to the United States Senate, becoming the only senator from America’s Deep South to remain in service with the Senate when southern states began their secession from the Union in December 1860. Subsequently appointed by Lincoln as Tennessee’s military governor in March 1862, he had then been placed on the Republican ticket as Lincoln’s running mate during the pivotal presidential election of November 1864, and had been sworn in as the nation’s vice president in March 1865—just forty-two days before he succeeded Lincoln.

Like Lincoln and Lincoln’s Secretary of State William Seward, Andrew Johnson had also been the target of the assassination conspiracy that unfolded on April 14, 1865. But Johnson was luckier. George Atzerodt, the man who had been assigned to assassinate him, changed his mind as he reached Kirkwood House, the Pennsylvania Avenue hotel where Johnson lived, and, instead, left Washington, D.C., hoping to evade capture.

Shortly before sunrise, while still the sitting vice president, Johnson visited the unconscious, dying president at his bedside at the Petersen House, spent a few moments consoling Lincoln’s family, and then walked the short distance back to his residence to prepare for the possibility of being sworn in as the nation’s next president.

Depiction of Andrew Johnson being sworn as the seventeenth president of the United States, April 15, 1865. The ceremony, attended by only a handful of senior government officials, was a subdued affair due to the death earlier that day of President Lincoln. It was held at Kirkwood House in Washington, D.C., where Johnson had resided since his inauguration as vice president forty-two days earlier (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, January 6, 1866).

Less than four hours after Lincoln’s death, Johnson was administered the Oath of Office by Chief Justice Salmon Chase of the United States Supreme Court, as several members of Lincoln’s former cabinet and Johnson’s former fellow senators looked on:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

After speaking those words, President Andrew Johnson told the small group:

The duties of the office are mine; I will perform them—the consequences are with God. Gentlemen, I shall lean upon you; I feel I shall need your support. I am deeply impressed with the solemnity of the occasion and the responsibilities of the duties of the office I am assuming.

It was at that moment, during the morning of April 15, 1865, that the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry entered its tenure of Reconstruction Era service under a new commander-in-chief.

Members of the regiment began that new phase of duty with heavy hearts and hope for a brighter day, according to C Company’s Henry Wharton. Writing to the editor of his hometown newspaper, the Sunbury American, from an unidentified “Camp Near Washington, D.C.” on April 24, Wharton mused:

It is true we have sustained a great loss in the death of our much beloved President, but as it has pleased Divine Power to remove him from our midst, we should be thankful that He has given us such a great and determined man in his stead (Andrew Johnson) to drive on the machinery of the Government. It was a wise thing in the framers of the Constitution when they put in that clause, where if we lose our President the wheels of the Government can never be stopped. This is done by the Vice President, a plain unpretending citizen, on the death of the Chief Magistrate, stepping forward so to take the oath administered by the Chief Justice, and at once takes the responsibility of the office. No flourish of trumpets, nor convulsion of nations, but by the simple power vested in a Judge, a fellow citizen assumes power. This little fact proves that our Republic can never die.

I cannot describe to you the feeling of the army when the news reached us that Abraham Lincoln had been murdered by the assassin. I will not attempt it, for in doing so, I would work myself into a state to make me miserable. One thing – if the boys had gone into a fight that morning no prisoners would have been taken – no quarters given.

In Washington, the train containing the remains of our late President, passed us near the Annapolis Junction. There was [sic, were] nine cars heavily draped in mourning. Our train stopped on a siding. It was a solemn time. The men all uncovered in respect, and stout men wept as the last of him they loved, passed them, to be conveyed to its resting place. Along the whole route, houses were draped in mourning, and the American flag hung at half mast [sic, half-mast] with mourning. This showed the deep hold Mr. Lincoln had in the hearts of our people.

Sources:

1. “Andrew Johnson’s Inauguration.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Park Service, retrieved online April 17, 1865.
2. “Andrew Johnson: The 17th President of the United States.” Washington, D.C.: The White House, retrieved online April 17, 1865.
3. “The New President” (announcement of President Andrew Johnson’s recent inauguration). Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Constitutional Union, April 17, 1865.
4. “The Swearing in of Andrew Johnson.” Washington, D.C.: Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies (JCCIC) and the United States Senate, retrieved online April 17, 1865.
5. Wharton, Henry. Letters from the Sunbury Guards, 1861-1868. Sunbury, Pennsylvania: Sunbury American.