Johnston, Joseph E. (Joseph Eggleston), 1807-1891

Joseph Eggleston Johnson was a career U.S. military officer who served as a general in the Confederacy during the Civil War. Born near Farmville, Virginia, on February 3, 1807, Johnston attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, and graduated in 1829. He served as a lieutenant with the Fourth U.S. Artillery in the early 1830s, eventually resigning in 1837 to pursue a career in civil engineering. After a short stint as a civilian engineer in Florida during the Second Seminole War, Johnston returned the U.S. Army and was soon after promoted to captain.

When the Mexican-American War broke out in 1846, Johnston served on the personal staff of General Winfield Scott. He performed very well during the war, seeing significant combat and receiving wounds at the Battle of Cerro Gordo and at Chapultepec. Army officials issued Johnston multiple brevet (honorary) promotions for his actions during the war, leading him to holding the rank of brevet colonel. (Brevet promotions were not formally recognized in regular Army service, and Johnston returned to the official rank of captain after the Mexican War ended in 1848.)

During the 1850s, Johnston petitioned for a promotion to colonel in the regular Army based upon his brevet ranks. The U.S. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, a fellow West Point graduate, rejected the petition, but did appoint Johnston a lieutenant colonel in the First U.S. Cavalry, stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. With this unit, Johnston saw field operations against Native Americans in Wyoming Territory and was present in territorial Kansas during the battle over slavery there.

In 1860, when the Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army, Brigadier General Thomas Jesup, passed away, Secretary of War John B. Floyd selected Johnston as the replacement. The appointment included a promotion to brigadier general, placing Johnston above other notable Army officers of his generation, including future Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Albert Sidney Johnston.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, and Virginia declared its secession from the Union, Johnston resigned his commission. As brigadier general, Johnston was the highest ranking U.S. Army officer to resign and join the Confederacy. He initially received an appointment as major general over the Virginia militia, but soon after learned that his position would be downgraded to brigadier general in favor of Robert E. Lee filling the state militia’s sole major general position. Johnston rejected the offer from the Virginia state government and instead accepted a commission as brigadier general in the Confederate States Army.

Johnston organized the Army of the Shenandoah in the spring of 1861, and was the highest ranking Confederate officer at the First Battle of Bull Run in July that year. However, he deferred to Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard, who was more familiar with the terrain and troop dispositions around Manassas, Virginia, and thus had less to do with Confederate actions during the engagement.

Johnston was promoted to full general in August 1861, but was upset that three of his pre-war colleagues outranked him in the Confederacy. This led to friction between Johnston and President Jefferson Davis for the rest of the war. Nevertheless, Johnston was placed in command of the Army of Northern Virginia, seen by many as the most important Confederate army due to its responsibilities of protecting the Confederate capital of Richmond from Union force. In the spring of 1862, Johnston conducted a strategic retreat toward Richmond in the face of Union General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. During the Battle of Seven Pines on May 31, 1862, Johnston was wounded and removed the field for treatment. General Robert E. Lee was given command of the Army of Northern Virginia, and through his aggressive and successful attacks against McClellan, Lee retained command of that army for the rest of the war.

In November 1862, Johnston recovered from the wound received at Seven Pines and received orders to the western theater. He had nominal command over Confederates in the region, but found he had little practical control over two large armies—one led by General John C. Pemberton and the other commanded by General Braxton Bragg—already involved in campaigns in Tennessee and Mississippi. In early 1863. Johnston attempted to gather reinforcements to support Pemberton in protecting Vicksburg from Ulysses S. Grant’s Union army. Grant’s army won a series of engagements cutting off Vicksburg from Jackson, Mississippi, blocking Johnston from uniting with Pemberton. Johnston recommended that Pemberton abandon Vicksburg to prevent his army from being surrounded by Grant. News of this recommendation upset many Confederates, including Jefferson Davis, who recognized the value of Vicksburg to controlling the Mississippi River. Pemberton’s army was indeed surrounded and captured at Vicksburg in July 1863. Davis partially blamed the loss of Vicksburg on Johnston’s failure to aggressively reinforce Pemberton, leading to additional tensions between the Confederate president and Johnston.

A few weeks later, General Bragg resigned his command of the Army of Tennessee after losing to Union forces at Chattanooga. Despite Davis’s dislike of Johnston, the Confederacy had few generals experienced or capable of leading an army. He reluctantly placed Johnston in command of the Army of Tennessee in late December 1863.

In the spring of 1864, Union general William Tecumseh Sherman launched a campaign from Chattanooga to capture the city of Atlanta, Georgia. Johnston led his Army of Tennessee in a series of maneuvers to block the Union army. Over the next several weeks, Sherman’s larger army repeatedly attacked and flanked the Confederates, prompting Johnston to conduct a strategic withdrawal back toward Atlanta, taking new defensive positions each time. Although Johnston’s methods slowed the Union advance and inflicted more casualties on Union forces than suffered by the Confederates, Johnston retreated 110 miles in two months and failed to stop Sherman’s threat to Atlanta. Frustrated by Johnston’s perceived lack of aggression, Davis relieved Johnston of command in July 1864. His replacement, John Bell Hood, launched bold attacks against Sherman but failed, and the Confederates had to abandon Atlanta in September 1864.

Having lost command of the Army of Tennessee, Johnston went to South Carolina to sit out the rest of the war. However, as Confederate fortunes continued to fail, numerous political leaders called for Johnston to be reinstated. President Davis vehemently opposed the recommendation, having lost faith in Johnston. Only after Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens and numerous Confederate officials tried to circumvent Davis’s authority did the president acquiesce and order Johnston to field command. In February 1865, he received control of Confederate forces in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina. He consolidated his troops, but the combined force amounted only to about 25,000 soldiers. Johnston hoped to unite his force with Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, but Lee refused. A few weeks later, in mid-April 1865, Lee was defeated by Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia, and shortly afterwards Johnston’s Confederates were finally overwhelmed by Sherman’s Union soldiers in North Carolina. During negotiations with Sherman, Johnston formally surrendered all Confederate soldiers scattered across North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida—amounting, on paper, to nearly 90,000 Confederates. It was the largest surrender of the Civil War.

Federal forces paroled Johnston on May 2, 1865, allowing him to return to civilian life with the promise to not take up arms against the United States. He pursued various business interests, including serving as president of the Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad, and working as an insurance agent for New York Life Insurance Company. Johnston also wrote his memoirs, voicing criticism of Jefferson Davis and many other former Confederates. On the other hand, he developed a strong friendship with his former adversary, William Tecumseh Sherman. Grateful for the generous terms of surrender and respect shown to him by Sherman at the end of the war, Johnston reportedly denounced anyone who spoke ill of Sherman in his presence, and served as an honorary pallbearer at Sherman’s funeral in New York City in February 1891. Johnston became sick immediately after the funeral—possibly from exposure to cold temperatures and rain during the procession—and died of pneumonia a month later, on March 21, 1891.

Johnston had been married to Lydia McLane Johnston. The couple had no children, and Lydia died in 1887. Both are buried in Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland. (Wikipedia; American Battlefield Trust; FindaGrave; John L. Bell, “Joseph E. Johnston (1807-1891),” Encyclopedia Virginia)