Born December 29, 1808, Andrew Johnson began his political career in Greeneville, Tenn. After serving as both alderman and mayor of Greeneville, Johnson successfully ran for a seat in the lower house of the state legislature in 1835. After serving three terms in the state Senate, Johnson moved to the United States House of Representatives, where he served for ten years, 1843-1853. He also served as Governor of Tennessee from 1853-1857. In the fall of 1857, he was chosen as a United States Senator.

In 1861, Johnson returned to East Tennessee to fight the surging secessionist movement, joining former political opponents such as William G. Brownlow, Thomas A. R. Nelson, Horace Maynard, and others in his support of the Union. After a June 8 referendum in which Tennesseeans voted for secession, Johnson returned to Washington to escape physical harm.

After the Federal capture of Forts Henry and Donelson and the occupation of Nashville in February 1862, however, President Lincoln sent Johnson back to Tennessee to serve as military governor, a position in which he was charged to restore civil government and bring the state back to the Union. In 1864, the Republicans nominated Johnson as Lincoln's running mate because of his staunch Unionism as a War Democrat. After Lincoln's assassination on April 14, 1865, Johnson was sworn in as the seventeenth President of the United States.

Johnson faced the difficult task of reconstructing the nation in the wake of the Civil War as he assumed the presidency. Johnson and Congress clashed over control of Reconstruction, and in 1868, the House Republicans in Congress impeached Johnson, the first president to face impeachment. Johnson's presidency was spared by a single vote in the Senate.

Following his tumultuous presidency, Johnson returned to Greeneville, eager for vindication. In 1874, he became the first former President of the United States to win a seat in the United States Senate. However, four months after taking his seat in the Senate, Johnson suffered a stroke and died on July 31, 1875. He was buried wrapped in a American flag with his head resting on a copy of the Constitution.

George Hunt Pendleton was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on July 19, 1825, to Nathanael Pendleton and his wife. In 1847, he was admitted to the bar and began to practice law in Cincinnati. He served as an Ohio state senator from 1854 to 1856, and as a U.S. congressman from 1857 to 1865. From 1869 to 1879, he was the president of the Kentucky Central Railroad, before serving as a U.S. senator from 1879 to 1885, when he became the ambassador to Germany. Pendleton died on November 24, 1889, in Brussels, Belgium.