David T. Patterson

David Trotter Patterson was born at Cedar Creek, near Greeneville, Tennessee, on February 28, 1818. He attended the common schools and later Greeneville College for two years. He studied law with a local attorney to prepare for a legal career.

After being admitted to the bar in 1841, Patterson practiced in Greeneville. He also engaged in manufacturing. He was appointed as a judge of the first circuit court of Tennessee 1854-1863. In addition, he acquired substantial amounts of land in East Tennessee and grew commodity crops.

In 1855, Patterson married Martha Johnson, daughter of Andrew Johnson and Eliza McCardle. They had two children, a son and a daughter.

A Unionist from East Tennessee, Patterson was elected by the Tennessee General Assembly to the U.S. Senate when Tennessee became the first Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union on July 24, 1866. His father-in-law Andrew Johnson had succeeded as President of the United States following Lincoln's assassination the year before.

When Johnson was impeached by the United States House of Representatives in February 1868, which caused Patterson personal conflict. According to the U. S. Constitution, the Senate had the duty to try Johnson on the charges and did so from March to May 1868. Their vote was one short of the constitutional requirement of a two-thirds majority. (Patterson believed that his father-in-law was not guilty and that the charges against him were contrived. In the decades since the impeachment, historians generally have agreed to a consensus with the same conclusion, but some disagree.)

Patterson retired from public life when his Senate term expired on March 3, 1869. He returned to East Tennessee to manage his relatively vast agricultural interests.

On November 3, 1891, Patterson died in the small community of Afton. He was interred with the Johnson family in the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery in Greeneville.

• McKellar, Kenneth. “David T. Patterson,” in Tennessee Senators as Seen by One of Their Successors, Kingsport, Tenn.: Southern Publishers, Inc., 1942, 316-324.

• United States Congress. "David T. Patterson (id: P000110)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
• A Short History of the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery, National Park Service