score:7
The story of a senator leaving his sickbed to save Andrew Johnson from conviction may have it roots in the 1942 movie, Tennessee Johnson.
The climactic scene is described in the Wikipedia article (retrieved 12:19, July 29, 2017):
The vote is close, with 35 judging him guilty and 18 not, but Senator Huyler is unconscious and unable to vote. Stevens, who is counting on him, delays the final verdict until Huyler can be roused and brought in for the deciding vote. To his dismay, Huyler votes not guilty.
This scene is purely fictional. There wasn't even a Huyler in the Senate.
Upvote:17
Are you perhaps thinking of Maryland Senator George W. Vickers?
He was elected to the US Senate in 1868, just as the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson was getting underway. Apparently, men crossed the Chesapeake Bay in an ice-boat to wake him in the middle of the night and inform him of his election. Vickers then hurried to Washington, and was sworn in just in time to cast the deciding vote against impeachment.
Vickers' election was subsequently unsuccessfully challenged by Charles Sumner of Massachusetts.
The full story of Andrew Jackson's impeachment hearings (from Friday 13 March 1868 to Tuesday 26 May), including Vickers being sworn in on 13 March - just in time to serve on the Court of Impeachment (page 6), is recorded in a Supplement to the 1868 issue of The Congressional Globe (the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress from the 23rd Congress in 1833 through to the 42nd Congress in 1873). It runs to a mere 552 pages ...