Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-05-25
Social Assassination.
A vIRTUOUS AND INNOCENT WOMAN DONE
TO DEATHBY sLANDEoUs TONGUES.

| A VIRTUOUS AND INNOCENT WOMAN DONE
TO DEATHBY sLANDEOUS TONGUES.
Some two or three weeks ago vague rum
! ors commenced to reach Nashville seriously
affecting the reputation of ex-President
| johnson and a lady of Greeneville-wife of
| the postmaster at that place. We made
| inquiry, were informed on good authority
| that the statements were baseIess, and re-
| Trained from any sllusion thereto IL our
columns. But the gossips would not de-
sist, all manner of reports concerning the
| lady and gentleman mentioned were per-
sistently kept in circulation and we finally
telegr2phed TO a prominent citizen of
Greenevine, who answered, several days
since, as follows:
"There is not an atom Of truth in the al
| legged scandal. Lying tongues have driven
virtuous, Christian lady to insane suicide,
| This is a candid statement of the facts"
Convinced of The foul injustice that had
been done, we sill forebOre, out of respect
for the parties involved, to give it undue
/ publicity, but the following dispatch from
Brooklyn, New York, to the Indianapolis
Journal, shows that the slanderers were de-
termined not 10 be defeated Of their pur-
pose:
"A few days since it was announced that
Mrs. Emily Harold, wife of the Postmaster
at Greeneville, East Tennessee, had COM
mitted suicide by shooting herself through
the head with revolver. A letter Just re-
| ceived by a resident of GreeneVille, now in
Brooklyn attending the Methodist General
| Conference, conveys the intelligence that
Mrs. Harold had been seduced by ex-Presi-
dent johnson, and that discovery and ex-
L l.aI hnr m ho II r.
rash act. Great indignation is expressed
among he citizens of Greeneville against
the ex-President, and many of the best citi-
zens refuse to speak TO him on the street"
We have had every opportunity to learn
all the circumstances SO grossly misstated in
the dispatch above qdOted, and have no
hesitation in saying that, for heartless cruel
| ty on the part of the instigators and perpe-
| traitors, this affair stands unparalleled in the
annals of social murder. Il was frequently
referred TO by prominent East Tennessee Re
| pubIicans during the State Convention OF
their party recently held here, and they were
unanimous in declaring that the reports
which rendered Mrs. Harold insane and led
| her to take her own life were as false as the
malice of those who invented them was in
| appeasable and devilish. Ali of these gen.
| temen were Mr.. JOhnson's political oppo-
nents-sOme Of them his personal enemies
yet they all expressed the firmest conviction
Of bis innocence, all bore testimony to the
lifetime piety Of the lady with whose
name his had been 20 fatally associated.
| They explained that Greeneville is a Cos
siping village Of some thousand inhabi-
tantS, and that for Mr.. johnson to so much
as bow to lady on the streets is sufficient
to make the social prey of bis enemies.
His moral conduct since be retired from the
Presidential chair to his home in that place
has been irreproachable. Even had such
not been the case, he would hardly have
been base enough to betray the wife OF
his oldest friend-of the man who toiled
beside him in the same shop and who was
not forgotten in the days Of his fame and
prosperity"