Greeneville, my last request before death would be for some friend I would bequeath the last dollar to some Negro to pay -- to take my dirty stinking carcass after death out on some mountain peak, and there leave it to be devoured by the vultures and wolves or make a fire sufficiently large to consume the smallest particle that it might pass off and smoke and ride upon the wind in triumph over the God-forsaken and hell-deserving, money-loving, hypocritical, backbiting, Sunday-praying scoundrels of the town of Greeneville." - Meaning and context.">
QuotesCosmos
U.S. Rep. Andrew Johnson, 1847. As quoted from The Washington Post Presidential Podcast Episode Transcript "Andrew Johnson Stitching up a torn country".https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/podcasts/presidential/pdfs/andrew-johnson-transcript.pdf Johnson would die of a stroke during 1875 while visiting his daughters at the riverside home of his daughter Mary, some 45 miles away, immediately upstream of Brumit Island and northeast of Elizabethton, Tennessee.https://www.nps.gov/anjo/learn/historyculture/timeline.htm "Andrew Johnson Timeline".https://www.elizabethton.com/2020/03/18/east-tennessee-history-the-death-of-a-president/ "East Tennessee History: The Death of a President"https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/31395 "Andrew Johnson Died Here"http://www.cartercountyhistory.com/andrew-johnson.html "Andrew Johnson - Carter County Area History"
“

If I should happen to die among the damn spirits that infest Greeneville, my last request before death would be for some friend I would bequeath the last dollar to some Negro to pay -- to take my dirty stinking carcass after death out on some mountain peak, and there leave it to be devoured by the vultures and wolves or make a fire sufficiently large to consume the smallest particle that it might pass off and smoke and ride upon the wind in triumph over the God-forsaken and hell-deserving, money-loving, hypocritical, backbiting, Sunday-praying scoundrels of the town of Greeneville.

— Andrew Johnson

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "If I should happen to die among the damn spirits that infest Greeneville, my last request before death would be for some friend I would bequeath the last dollar to some Negro to pay -- to take my dirty stinking carcass after death out on some mountain peak, and there leave it to be devoured by the vultures and wolves or make a fire sufficiently large to consume the smallest particle that it might pass off and smoke and ride upon the wind in triumph over the God-forsaken and hell-deserving, money-loving, hypocritical, backbiting, Sunday-praying scoundrels of the town of Greeneville." in the context of "U.S. Rep. Andrew Johnson, 1847. As quoted from The Washington Post Presidential Podcast Episode Transcript "Andrew Johnson Stitching up a torn country".https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/podcasts/presidential/pdfs/andrew-johnson-transcript.pdf Johnson would die of a stroke during 1875 while visiting his daughters at the riverside home of his daughter Mary, some 45 miles away, immediately upstream of Brumit Island and northeast of Elizabethton, Tennessee.https://www.nps.gov/anjo/learn/historyculture/timeline.htm "Andrew Johnson Timeline".https://www.elizabethton.com/2020/03/18/east-tennessee-history-the-death-of-a-president/ "East Tennessee History: The Death of a President"https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/31395 "Andrew Johnson Died Here"http://www.cartercountyhistory.com/andrew-johnson.html "Andrew Johnson - Carter County Area History"" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "Andrew Johnson" (Quotes) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app

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#Andrew Johnson#greeneville#death#last#helldeserving#sundaypraying#sufficiently#hypocritical#godforsaken#moneyloving#backbiting#scoundrels
Andrew Johnson

About Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson (29 December 1808 – 31 July 1875) was the seventeenth president of the United States (1865–1869), succeeding to the presidency upon the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Johnson was a Democrat from the Southern states but had supported the Union in the American Civil War and had been nominated as the running mate in Abraham Lincoln's Republican campaign. He presided over the Reconstruction of the United States following the American Civil War and was the first president to be impeached, although he was subsequently acquitted by a single vote in the Senate. As President, he resisted efforts from the Republican Congress to remove white-supremacist supporters of the former Confederacy from state governments and to extend franchise and civil rights to African Americans. For this, historians usually rank him as one of the worst Presidents in U.S. history.