Background
Johnson was born on September 29, 1829, in Frederick City, Maryland, the son of Charles Worthington and Eleanor Murdock (Tyler) Johnson, and grandson of Col. Baker Johnson of the Continental Army.
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(“The South’s ranking of senior generals seeks to tarnish ...)
“The South’s ranking of senior generals seeks to tarnish my fair fame as a soldier and a man, earned by more than thirty years of laborious and perilous service. I had but this, the scars of many wounds, all honestly taken in my front and in the front of battle, and my father's Revolutionary sword. It was delivered to me from his venerated hand, without a stain of dishonor. Its blade is still unblemished as when it passed from his hand to mine. I drew it in the war, not for rank or fame, but to defend the sacred soil, the homes and hearths, the women and children; aye, and the men of my mother Virginia, my native South." – Joseph E. Johnston to Jefferson Davis, September 1861 During the Civil War, one of the tales that was often told among Confederate soldiers was that Joseph E. Johnston was a crack shot who was a better bird hunter than just about everyone else in the South. However, as the story went, Johnston would never take the shot when asked to, complaining that something was wrong with the situation that prevented him from being able to shoot the bird when it was time. The story is almost certainly apocryphal, but it was aptly used to demonstrate the Confederates’ frustration with a man who everyone regarded as a capable general. Johnston began the Civil War as one of the South’s senior commanders, leading the ironically named Army of the Potomac to victory in the Battle of First Bull Run over Irvin McDowell’s Union Army. But Johnston would become known more for losing by not winning. Johnston was never badly beaten in battle, but he had a habit of strategically withdrawing until he had nowhere left to retreat. When Johnston had retreated in the face of McClellan’s army before Richmond in 1862, he finally launched a complex attack that not only failed but left him severely wounded, forcing him to turn over command of the Army of Northern Virginia to Robert E. Lee. Johnston and Confederate President Jefferson Davis had a volatile relationship throughout the war, but Johnston was too valuable to leave out of service and at the beginning of 1864 he was given command of the Army of Tennessee. When Johnston gradually retreated in the face of Sherman’s massive army (which outnumbered his 2-1) before Atlanta in 1864, Davis removed Johnston from command of the Army of Tennessee and gave it to John Bell Hood. Johnston has never received the plaudits of many of the South’s other generals; in fact, there are only a couple of monuments commemorating his service in the South. Yet Johnston was a competent general who fought in some of the most important campaigns of the Civil War, and it’s often forgotten that it was his surrender to Sherman weeks after Appomattox that truly ended the Civil War. Johnston did so over Davis’s command to keep fighting, incurring his wrath once more. Having dealt with each other, Sherman and Johnston became friends after the war, and when the elderly Johnston served as a pallbearer at Sherman’s funeral, he contracted an illness that eventually killed him. Given his prominent and controversial role in the Civil War, Johnston naturally took to writing memoirs, Narrative of Military Operations During the Civil War, which gives an extremely detailed account of the war, a defense of his actions, and criticism of Jefferson Davis and John Bell Hood. One of the most interesting parts of Johnston’s memoirs come at the end, with his letters, telegrams, and even an anecdote about the origins of the Confederate Battle Flag.
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(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
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lawyer military Soldier writer
Johnson was born on September 29, 1829, in Frederick City, Maryland, the son of Charles Worthington and Eleanor Murdock (Tyler) Johnson, and grandson of Col. Baker Johnson of the Continental Army.
Johnson graduated at Princeton with honors in mathematics (A. B. 1849), studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1851 in Frederick.
Entering politics, Johnson was state's attorney, Democratic candidate for comptroller, state chairman of the Democratic Committee, and delegate to the national conventions of 1860. In the election of 1860 he supported Breckenridge After the outbreak of the Civil War he helped to organize the 1st Maryland Regiment, for the Confederate army, and served with it as major in J. E. Johnston's Valley campaign and at First Manassas.
During 1862, having attained the rank of colonel, he ably commanded the 1st Maryland under Ewell and Jackson at Front Royal, Winchester, Harrisonburg, and the engagement at Gaines's Hill, before Richmond. Left without a command through the disbanding of his regiment by the Confederate war department, he commanded temporarily Gen. J. R. Jones's brigade at Second Manassas. Jackson recommended Johnson for promotion to the rank of brigadier-general, and meanwhile he was employed in several capacities, including another command of Jones's brigade, from July 2, at Gettysburg, to November 1863. Later he commanded Maryland cavalry under Wade Hampton, north of Richmond, where in February 1864 he checked Kilpatrick's raid, against a force far superior to his numerically. He was commissioned brigadier-general June 28, 1864, was given command of the cavalry brigade of Gen. William E. Jones, lately killed, and served under Early in the Valley and in Maryland.
In McCausland's expedition of July 1864 to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, Johnson executed Early's orders to burn the town. During the same raid he was disastrously surprised at Moorefield and barely avoided being captured. Later he participated in the campaign against Sheridan in the Valley. Heavy losses then made consolidation of commands necessary, and Johnson was displaced by officers senior in rank. He was sent to Salisbury, North Carolina, in November 1864, where, as commander of prisoners, he made strenuous efforts to restore order and relieve distress.
After the war, Johnson practiced law in Richmond and represented railroad interests before the legislature. In the Virginia Senate (1875-1879), he led in drafting the compromise measures designed to restore to order Virginia's tangled finances. From 1879 to 1890 he practiced law in Baltimore, Maryland. His last years he spent in Amelia, Virginia. He died on October 5, 1903.
Johnson was one of the most prominent Marylanders to cast his lot with the Confederacy. He fought and was victorious in many battles, including the Battle of Front Royal, the First Battle of Winchester, and Peninsula Campaign. Besides, Johnson was known for his legal practice, being admitted to the bar in 1851 and working as a lawyer after the war.
(Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
(“The South’s ranking of senior generals seeks to tarnish ...)
On June 25, 1851, Johnson was married to Jane Claudia Saunders of North Carolina.
