The Shasta Courier

Andy Johnson's Pluck.

The New York correspondent of the Boston Journal gives the following anecdote illustrating the pluck of President Johnson:

The day before the execution of the assassins, a company of gentlemen were at the Astor House; most of whom agreed that Mrs. Surratt would not be executed, some assigning the reason that the President would not have pluck enough to brave public sentiment and allow a woman to be hung. A well known merchant of New York who was present, cooly remarked,

A man who talks about Andy Johnson's want of pluck evidently don't know the man. If Andy Johnson has signed the death warrant of Mrs. Surratt she will die. If he had intended to reprieve her he would not have signed it. Let me tell you what I know. I was shut up in Nashville when the city was surrounded by 20,000 rebel troops, who demanded its surrender.—Gen. Buell was in the city in command of 10,000 men. He determined on the surrender of the city to the rebel forces. He came to Governor Johnson and announced to him that he could not defend the city, and that Nashville must be surrendered. The Governor heard him quietly through, and then replied, "You are in command of the United States troops and can do as you will with these. But two of these regiments belong to the State of Tennessee. Over these I have control. In the center of the city is a powder magazine. I have trenches dug connecting the magazine with every prominent building in Nashville, and the trains are laid. Now you march out with your troops. I'll defend the city with my two regiments as long as I can. When I can do no more I will fire the city and blow it to the heavens, for by—Nashville shall never be surrendered while I am alive." Buell did not march out and Nashville was not surrendered. What I tell you,' said the merchant, 'I heard.'

But the moral grandeur and heroism of those utterances cannot be told. And that,' quietly remarked the merchant, 'is Andy Johnson, and so all will find him who have to do with him.'