Joseph Eggleston Johnston (February 3, 1807 – March 21, 1891) was an American military officer and politician who served in the United States Army during the Mexican–American War and in the Seminole Wars. After Virginia declared secession from the United States in 1861, he entered the Confederate States Army as one of its most senior general officers during the American Civil War.
Johnston was trained as a civil engineer at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, graduating in the same class as Robert E. Lee. He later saw frontier service in Florida, Texas, and Kansas and by 1860 he achieved the rank of brigadier general as Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army.
Johnston's effectiveness in the American Civil War was undercut by tensions with Confederate president Jefferson Davis. Victory eluded him in most campaigns he personally commanded. He was the senior Confederate commander at the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, but the victory is usually credited to his subordinate, P. G. T. Beauregard. Johnston defended the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, during the 1862 Peninsula Campaign, withdrawing under the pressure of George B. McClellan's superior force. He suffered a severe wound at the Battle of Seven Pines and was replaced by Robert E. Lee.
In 1863, Johnston was placed in command of the Department of the West. In 1864, he commanded the Army of Tennessee against William Tecumseh Sherman in the Atlanta campaign. In the war's final days, Johnston was returned to command of the few remaining forces in the Carolinas campaign. U.S. Army generals Ulysses S. Grant and Sherman praised his actions in the war and became friends with Johnston afterward.
After the war, Johnston served as an executive in the railroad and insurance businesses. He was elected as a Democrat in the United States House of Representatives, serving a single term. He was appointed as the federal commissioner of railroads under Grover Cleveland. Johnston died of pneumonia one month after attending Sherman's funeral.
Early years Johnston was born at Longwood House in "Cherry Grove", near Farmville, Virginia, on February 3, 1807. (Longwood House later burned down. The rebuilt house was the birthplace in 1827 of Charles S. Venable, an officer on the staff of Robert E. Lee. It is now used as the residence of the president of Longwood University.) His grandfather, Peter Johnston, emigrated to Virginia from Scotland in 1726. Joseph was the seventh son of Judge Peter Johnston Jr. (1763–1831) and Mary Valentine Wood (1769–1825), a daughter of Patrick Henry's sister, Lucy Wood.Chisholm, p. 474 He was named for Major Joseph Eggleston, under whom his father served in the American Revolutionary War, in the command of Henry Lee III. His brother Charles Clement Johnston served as a U.S. congressman, and his nephew John Warfield Johnston was a U.S. senator; both represented Virginia. In 1811, the Johnston family moved to Abingdon, Virginia, a town near the Tennessee border, where his father Peter built a home he named Panecillo.Symonds, pp. 10–11, 28, 373; Longwood historical marker
Johnston attended the United States Military Academy, nominated by John C. Calhoun in 1825 while he was Secretary of War. He was moderately successful in academics and received only a small number of disciplinary demerits. He graduated in 1829, ranking 13th of 46 cadets, and was appointed a second lieutenant in the 4th U.S. Artillery.Eicher, pp. 322–323. He would become the first West Point graduate to be promoted to a general officer in the regular army, reaching a higher rank in the U.S. Army than did his 1829 classmate, Robert E. Lee (2nd of 46).Symonds, pp. 13, 3; Warner, p. 161; Eicher, p. 344.
U.S. Army service Johnston resigned from the Army in March 1837 and studied civil engineering. During the Second Seminole War, he was a civilian topographic engineer aboard a ship led by William Pope McArthur. On January 12, 1838, at Jupiter, Florida, the sailors who had gone ashore were attacked. Johnston said there were "no less than 30 bullet holes" in his clothing, and one bullet creased his scalp, leaving a scar he had for the rest of his life. Having encountered more combat activities in Florida as a civilian than he had previously as an artillery officer, Johnston decided to rejoin the Army. He departed for Washington, D.C., in April 1838 and was appointed a first lieutenant of topographic engineers on July 7; on that same day, he received a brevet promotion to captain for the actions at Jupiter Inlet and his explorations of the Florida Everglades.Symonds, pp. 40–43; Eicher, p. 322.
On July 10, 1845, in Baltimore, Johnston married Lydia Mulligan Sims McLane (1822–1887), the daughter of Louis McLane and his wife. Her father was the president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, a prominent politician (congressman and senator from Delaware, minister to London, and a member of President Andrew Jackson's cabinet). They had no children.Symonds, pp. 6, 48–49, 52; McMurry, p. 193.
Johnston was enthusiastic about the outbreak of the Mexican–American War. He served on the staff of Lt. Gen. Winfield Scott in the Siege of Veracruz, having been chosen by Scott to be the officer carrying the demand for surrender beforehand to the provincial governor. He was in the vanguard of the movement inland under Brig. Gen. David E. Twiggs and was severely wounded by grapeshot performing reconnaissance before the Battle of Cerro Gordo. He was appointed a brevet lieutenant colonel for his actions at Cerro Gordo. After recovering in a field hospital, he rejoined the army at Puebla. During the advance toward Mexico City, he was second in command of the "U.S. Regiment of Voltigeurs", a unit composed of light infantry or skirmishers. He distinguished himself at Contreras and Churubusco, was wounded again at Chapultepec, and received two brevet promotions for the latter two engagements, ending the war as a brevet colonel of volunteers. (After the end of hostilities, he reverted to his peacetime rank of captain in the topographical engineers.) Winfield Scott humorously remarked, "Johnston is a great soldier, but he had an unfortunate knack of getting himself shot in nearly every engagement." Johnston's greatest anguish during the war was the death of his nephew, Preston Johnston. When Robert E. Lee informed Johnston that a Mexican artillery shell had killed Preston at Contreras, both officers wept, and Johnston grieved for the remainder of his life.Symonds, pp. 54–71; Woodworth, p. 174; Eicher, p. 322.
Johnston was an engineer on the Texas-United States boundary survey in 1841; he returned to the area, was appointed chief topographical engineer of the Department of Texas and served from 1848 to 1853."Joseph Eggleston Johnston", The Handbook of Texas Online. Retrieved December 22, 2009.
During the 1850s, he sought his previous rank, sending letters to the War Department suggesting that he should be returned to a combat regiment with his wartime rank of colonel. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, an acquaintance of Johnston's from West Point, rebuffed these suggestions, as he did later during the Civil War, much to Johnston's irritation. Despite this disagreement, Davis thought enough of Johnston to appoint him lieutenant colonel in one of the newly formed regiments, the 1st U.S. Cavalry at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, under Col. Edwin V. "Bull" Sumner, on March 1, 1855. At this same time, Robert E. Lee was appointed lieutenant colonel of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry under Col. Albert Sidney Johnston (no relation). In this role, Johnston participated in actions against the Sioux in the Wyoming Territory and in the violence over slavery in the future state, known as Bleeding Kansas. He developed a mentor relationship and close friendship with one of his junior officers, Capt. George B. McClellan, who would later command the U.S. Army against Johnston.Symonds, pp. 72–80.
In the fall of 1856, Johnston was transferred to a depot for recruits at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri. In 1857 he led surveying expeditions to determine the Kansas border, including a corner monument that would later lead to a Supreme Court case. Later that year, Davis was replaced as Secretary of War by John B. Floyd, a native of Abingdon and a cousin of Johnston's by marriage. He had been a former guardian of Preston Johnston. Floyd made Johnston a brevet colonel for his actions at Cerro Gordo, a promotion that caused grumbling within the Army about favoritism. In 1859, President James Buchanan named Johnston's brother-in-law, Robert Milligan McLane, as minister to Mexico, and Johnston accompanied him on a journey to visit Benito Juárez's government in Veracruz. He was also ordered to inspect possible military routes across the country in case of further hostilities.Symonds, pp. 81–86, 89–91.
Brig. Gen. Thomas Jesup, the Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army, died on June 10, 1860. Winfield Scott was responsible for naming a replacement, but instead of one name, he offered four possibilities: Joseph E. Johnston, Albert Sidney Johnston (no relation), Robert E. Lee, and Charles F. Smith. Although Jefferson Davis, now a member of the Senate Military Affairs Committee, favored Albert Sidney Johnston, Secretary of War Floyd chose Joseph E. Johnston for the position.
Johnston was promoted to brigadier general on June 28, 1860. Johnston did not enjoy the position, preferring field command to administration in Washington. In addition, he suffered from the pressures of the imminent sectional crisis and the ethical dilemma of administering war matériel that might prove useful to his native South. He did not yield to temptation, however, as Secretary of War Floyd was accused of doing.Symonds, pp. 45, 88–96; Eicher, p. 322.
Civil War
Manassas and first friction with President Davis When his native state, Virginia, declared secession from the United States in 1861, Johnston resigned his commission as a brigadier general in the regular army, the highest-ranking U.S. Army officer to do so. He would go on to state, "I believed like most others, that the division of the country would be permanent; and that ... the revolution begun was justified by the maxims so often repeated by Americans, that Free government is founded on the consent of the governed, and that every community strong enough to establish and maintain its independence, has a right to assert it. Having been educated in such opinions, I naturally determined to return to the State of which I was a native, join the people among whom I was born, and live with my kindred, and if necessary, fight in their defense."Johnston, Joseph E., p. 10; Narrative of Military Operations, 1874.
He was initially commissioned as a major general in the Virginia militia on May 4, but the Virginia Convention decided two weeks later that only one major general was required in the state army and Robert E. Lee was their choice. Johnston was then offered a state commission as a brigadier general, which he declined, accepting instead a commission as a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army on May 14. Johnston relieved Colonel Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson of command at Harpers Ferry in May and organized the Army of the Shenandoah in July.Eicher, p. 322; Symonds, pp. 97, 103; McMurry, p. 193.