GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTONBorn at Longwood, Prince Edward County, Virginia, February 3, 1807Died at Washington, District of Columbia, March 21, 1891By Robert L. Taylor
Born at Longwood, Prince Edward County, Virginia, February 3, 1807
Died at Washington, District of Columbia, March 21, 1891
By Robert L. Taylor
When the restless spirit of Johnston took its flight from earth the South bade farewell to as brave a knight as ever shivered a lance “when knighthood was in flower.” His death following so quickly that of William T. Sherman, was a dramatic coincidence. They had fought a long and bloody duel—hilt to hilt and toe to toe, and the arena extended from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean. Sherman advanced with sword and torch in the hands of his splendid army; Johnston met him with strategy and the stubborn resistance of his thin lines of gray; the duel ended only when the resources of military art were exhausted and the shattered remnant of Johnston’s weary columns was overthrown by Sherman’s overwhelming numbers. When the conflict was ended and the battle flags were furled, these two great captains met in the capital of the republic and shook hands across the bloody chasm. Sherman died in February, 1891, and Johnston, broken in health and feeble with age, was one of his pall-bearers, an office which he had also performed at the funeral of his friend, General Grant. A month later he joined the silent hosts to which these antagonists on many a field of glory had preceded him.
Joseph Johnston was the eighth son of Judge Peter Johnston and Mary Woods, of Virginia, whose Scotch ancestors had lived and prospered and passed away on the old plantation at Osborne’s Landing. The boy was a born soldier and foreshadowed his brilliant career, even when a child at his mother’s knee. The story is told that his father took him coon-hunting one night, and he became so interested in describing and illustrating military tactics to the negro boy who attended him that they became separated from the hunters, and fell so far behind that they could not reach them with their voices. Jo made the boy dismount and kneel on the ground with his gun presented, in imitation of a hollow square of infantry. Then he withdrew and re-appeared as a regiment of cavalry, charging down upon the hollow square; but his horse was not a war-steed and was totally untrained in battle, and suddenly shying from the squatted infantry, threw the cavalry regiment to the ground. His biographer, Robert M. Hughes, says, “of course he was wounded—he always was on every available occasion.”[1]
The growth and development of the lad increased his determination to be a soldier. So marked was his predilection that his father, who had served under “Light Horse Harry Lee” in the Revolution, gave him his sword, although he was next to the youngest son. Young Johnston treasured it, and kept it bright till 1861, when the tocsin of Civil War was sounded, and, like Lee, he drew it in defense of hisnative State, although, like Lee, he was opposed to secession.
GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON
GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON
GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON
The comparison of the characters of Johnston and Lee is most interesting. Born in the same year, entering West Point at the same time and graduating in the same class (that of 1829), they both saw their first active military service under General Scott. Johnston accompanied Scott on his arduous campaign in the Florida Indian war, and later to Mexico. While Lee was engaged in boundary work in Texas, Johnston was performing a similar work for his government on the Canadian line. From early manhood they were fast friends and were bound together by the same associations, the same surroundings and the same interests throughout all their lives. Both came from the Mexican War with the title of colonel. Both were opposed to secession, but both resigned their commissions in the United States army and entered the service of the Stars and Bars with the rank of colonel. Both supported, with consummate ability and unfaltering courage, the cause they held dear, and when this cause went down in defeat both met the verdict with quiet dignity. Both refused safety and honors abroad, preferring to give their abilities to rebuilding a united nation, and both lived to have abundant proof of the respect and esteem in which all people held them.
It would be useless to seek to measure the relative capacity of these two classmates. The circumstances surrounding their operations were not the same, the generals opposing them were unlike and their methods of campaign were necessarily different. It is safe to say that both applied, as far as possible, the tactics and principles of war taught them at their alma mater. “Johnston’s Narrative,” which he wrote and published in 1875, explains his tactics and his reasons for adopting them and have been held in high repute by students of military art on both sides of the ocean ever since their publication.
Like Lee, Johnston never failed to gain the respect and confidence of his men. “Although,” says Mr. Hughes in his admirable biography, “Johnston was never allowed to retain command of one army long enough to achieve the great results which only flow from long association ... he never failed to win the love of his men. They trusted him because they knew that their blood would not be wasted.... They admired him because they knew he would not ask them to go where he would not go himself. His order was ‘Follow,’ not ‘Go.’... They called him their Game Cock, because of his gallantry and martial bearing, and strove to emulate him in courage and coolness.”
“Farewell, old fellow,” was the parting salute of one of his men, “we privates loved you because you made us love ourselves.”
Johnston’s personal character was no less admirable than his public career. Unselfishness, modesty, purity, courtesy, charity, devotion to home and family ties ever characterized him in public and in private.
After his surrender to Sherman at Durham’s Station, North Carolina, he retired to Savannah, Georgia, putting the war and its issues behind him, using his great influence to renew the national allegiance and to cultivate a new patriotism that should embrace the whole country. In 1877 he returned to Richmond, and in the following year was elected to the House of Representatives. On the expiration of his term he was appointed Commissioner of Railroads by President Cleveland and continued to reside in Washington until his death. He met here both Grant and Sherman, and, as already said, became fast friends with his former foes and acted as pallbearer at the funeral of each.
I sat with Jo Johnston in the Forty-sixth Congress of the United States. I was young and he was ripe in years and experience. I sought him and cultivated him and never tired of listening to the story from his lips of his maneuvers in the last days of the Confederacy. He was small of stature, square built, and straight as an arrow, with a big round bald head and keen gray eyes that glittered like stars. Congress was not congenial to him—he was not an orator but a soldier; he was not a statesman, but a general. He knew how to wield an army but was helpless on the battlefield of argument. During the fiercest fights of the two great contending parties on the floor of the house, he daily walked to and fro like a caged lion, his head up, his eyes sparkling and his whole attitude one of excitement, yet taking no part in the struggle. But he was a faithful representative of his people, and was loved by all who knew him.
In 1887 he received a crushing blow in the death of his wife. Their childlessness and her invalidism and the long years of army life had drawn them together in an unusual degree, and he was never able to recover his old time joy in life after his loss.
Naturally the distinguished veteran was in great demand on the occasion of re-union and memorial exercises. Always averse to anything savoring of publicity, he attempted to fill these engagements in an unobtrusive way, but at times the enthusiasm of his old followers put all his efforts to naught. This was shown at the memorial exercises at Atlanta in the spring of 1890, of which an Atlanta paper gives the following account:
“As the last carriage drove away, the Governor’s Horse Guard came up the street, forty strong, under command of Captain Miller. The company was an escort to the hero of the day. With the Governor’s Horse Guard came a carriage drawn by two black horses. In that carriage was General Joseph E. Johnston. The old hero sat upon the rear seat, and beside him was General Kirby Smith.... The carriage was covered with flowers. ‘That’s Johnston! that’s Jo Johnston!’ yelled some one. Instantly the Governor’s Horse Guard, horses and men, were displaced by eager, battle-scarred veterans. The men who fought under the hero surrounded the carriage. They raised it off the paved street, and they yelled themselveshoarse. Words of love, praise, and admiration were wafted to the hero’s ears. Hands pushed through the sides of the carriage and grasped the hands of the man who defended Atlanta. The crowd grew and thickened. Captain Ellis tried to disperse it, but could not. Then the police tried; but the love of the old soldiers was greater than the strength of both Captain Ellis and Atlanta’s police force. For ten minutes the carriage stood still; then, as it began to move, some one called out, ‘Take the horses away!’ Almost instantly both horses were unhitched, and the old men fought for their places in the traces. Then the carriage began to move. Men who loved the old soldier were pulling it. Up Marietta street it went to the Custom-house, then it was turned, and back toward the opera house it rolled. The rattle of the drum and the roll of the music were drowned by the yell of the old soldiers; they were wild, mad with joy; their long pent-up love for the old General had broken loose. Just before the carriage reached the opera house door a tall, bearded veteran on a horse rode to the side. Shoving his hand through the open curtain, he grasped the hand of General Johnston just as a veteran turned it loose. The General looked up. ‘General Johnston!’ cried the veteran. General Johnston continued to look up. His face showed a struggle. He knew the horseman, but he could not call his name. ‘Don’t you know me, General—don’t you know me?’ exclaimed the horseman. In his voice there was almost agony. ‘General Anderson, General,’ said Mrs. Milledge. General Johnston heard the words, and, rising almost from his seat, exclaimed, ‘Old Tige! Old Tige! Old Tige!’ The two men shook hands warmly. Tears were flowing down the cheeks of each. ‘Yes, Old Tige it is, General,’ said General Anderson, ‘and he loves you as much now as ever.’”
A simple headstone in the Greenmount Cemetery, at Baltimore, marks the sleeping place of Johnston, beside his wife, who was Miss Lydia McLane, of Baltimore.
[1]General Johnston. By R. M. Hughes, New York: D. Appleton & Co. Great Commanders Series.
[1]General Johnston. By R. M. Hughes, New York: D. Appleton & Co. Great Commanders Series.
[1]General Johnston. By R. M. Hughes, New York: D. Appleton & Co. Great Commanders Series.