Great Commanders, General Johnston

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CHAPTER I.LINEAGE, PARENTAGE, AND YOUTH.

The shire of Dumfries, one of the border counties of Scotland, is traversed by three considerable streams, which rise in the hills that form its northern boundary, and, pursuing a general southerly course, empty their waters into Solway Firth. Each of these has its own narrow dale, and receives from the watershed which divides it from its neighboring stream many smaller branches to swell its volume as it courses to the Firth. The hills which form these watersheds attain altitude almost sufficient to dignify them with the name of mountains, and make the region quite rugged in character.

The eastern of these streams is the Esk, and from it the valley which it waters is called Eskdale. The next, to the west, is the Annan, and on its banks is situated the district which is called Annandale. This stream rises in the hills above Moffat, in the same vicinity as the head waters of the Tweed and Clyde. Its total length is about forty miles, and into it drains as tributaries the Moffat, Wamphray, Dryfe, and Ae, besides others of less magnitude.

The western of these three water courses is the Nith, which, following the example of the others, bestows its name upon its bordering vale. At its mouth is the town of Dumfries, which needs no introduction to the lover of Burns.

Each of these districts is rich in tradition and famous in Scottish song and story. Here was waged constant warfare, not only between the men of the two nations whose boundary was so near, but between different Scotch families or clans as well. On the Esk was the Debatable Land, which alternately belonged to England and Scotland, according to the relative prowess and good fortune of the English or Scotch who contended for its possession. The Graemes, Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, who pursued the fair Ellen and young’ Lochinvar over Cannobie Lee, but whose steeds were distanced by the runaways, here found a field for their combats. Here, too, was Gretna Green, the favorite resort of English lovers fleeing on the wings of love from irate parents.

In Nithsdale dwelt the powerful family of Maxwells, whose retainers were spread along the Nith, and whose sway extended over the lower valley. In Annandale dwelt the Johnstone clan, mainly in the region which stretches from the town of Lockerby to the Wamphray. Their original family name was Jeanville, the equivalent of the present French name Joinville. The Norman chronicler names Le Seigneur de Jeanville, along with Robert de Bruis, Pierre de Balleul, and other names of Scottish families subsequently eminent, among those who took part in the battle of Hastings. Partly Saxonized into Janvil, it appears in that form on the roll of Battle Abbey. Thence it was anglicized into Johnestoun, and appears in that form as witness to a grant to Sir Robert Bruce in 1249. It next became Johnstone and is to this day indifferently Johnstone or Johnston, according as the scholastic or phonetic taste predominates with the individual bearer. In Johnstone church yard these two fashions of spelling it—Johnstone or Johnston—are found side by side, even on the tombs of father and son.

Being so near the border, the Johnstones were often ‘summoned on short notice to aid their compatriots of the vicinity in repelling English raids ; and, always responding promptly, they assumed for their crest the device of a winged spur, and for their motto the words Nunquam non paratus, which they rendered Ready, aye ready. Though friendly with their eastern neighbors, probably from the mutual esteem formed and fostered by constant armed association in battle against their national foes, the English, they carried on continual warfare with the Maxwells on the west, and with various alternations of fortune. So bitter was the enmity, that when, in one of the mutations of royal favor, Lord Maxwell was declared a rebel; the King knew no better means of apprehending him than by authorizing the Laird of Johnstone to do it. In this, however, the laird was unsuccessful, though supported by strong detachments of Government troops. The Maxwells defeated them and captured the Castle of Loughwood or Lochwood, the abode of the Johnstones. The captors committed it to the flames, one of them saying exultantly that they would give Lady Johnstone light enough to show her to set her silken hood.

The contest was maintained with all the ferocity of hereditary hatred, the military operations consisting mainly of forays upon each other when least expected, with the usual concomitants of butchering the party surprised and carrying off all the live stock on which they could lay their hands.

Not long after the above-named occurrence a peace was patched up between the clans, in which Maxwell and Johnstone mutually covenanted to freely remit and forgive all rancors of mind, grudge, malice, and feuds that had passed or fallen between them in any time bygone. After this the Johnstones, supposing that they had nothing to fear from the Maxwells, indulged in raids against their neighbors in the upper part of Nithsdale, with the result of greatly reducing the cattle and horses of that region. One of the Johnstones, however, made the serious mistake, if the old ballad of The Lads of Wamphray may be accepted as authority, of taking a blind horse, instead of Sim Crichton’s winsome dun. He was, in consequence, soon overtaken and unceremoniously suspended to a convenient tree. The Johnstones in revenge raided the region with a yet larger party, and on their return, laden with spoil, defeated their pursuers in the fight of Biddesburne, whereupon the vanquished went to Lord Maxwell and offered to become his liegemen if he would break with the Johnstones and side with them. The opportunity to form a strong alliance against his hereditary foes was too strong to resist ; and Lord Maxwell, regardless of his late compact with the Johnstones, accepted their offer, reasoning, perhaps, that though the treaty covered everything in times bygone, it did not commit him as to the present or future. To resist this combination, the Johnstones sought the aid of their eastern neighbors, the Buccleughs, Elliotts, Armstrongs, Scotts, and Grahams. The two little armies met near the confluence of the Dryfe and Annan, which, being in the heart of the Johnstone settlement, showed the Maxwells to have been the invaders. Here they fought the battle of Dryfe Sands. In this Sir James Johnstone displayed the military skill which seems to have been innate in the family. Placing his main body in ambush, he sent forward a small party of horsemen, with instructions to make a weak attack and then flee as if in rout. When the Maxwells pursued in disorder, confident of victory, his main body attacked them, and the result was decisive. The Maxwells were put to flight and pursued with the relentlessness of men burning to avenge murdered kindred and desolated homesteads. Many of the vanquished were overtaken in the streets of Locherby and dispatched by a slash in the face, a kind of blow that is still called in that part of Scotland a Locherby lick. The feud was only ended by the execution of Lord Maxwell, son of him who commanded at Dryfe Sands. He invited Sir James Johnstone, the opposing commander in that combat, to a conference; and when the attention of the latter was attracted by an altercation between their two retainers; Maxwell shot him in the back with a pistol loaded with poisoned bullets. Johnstone’s tomb in the ancient family churchyard records that he was cruelly murthered by a pistolet.

The name of the first emigrant of the Virginia Johnstones was Peter, which was the family name of the oldest son as far back as can be traced. He was born in Annan in 1710, but emigrated from Edinburgh in 1727, settling on James River at Osborne’s Landing, then the chief place in the colony for the inspection of tobacco, and an important shipping point. He engaged in mercantile pursuits, passing through all the stages of the business before he became independent. His business apparently so absorbed his attention as to leave no room for sentiment until his fifty-first year, when, having been measurably successful, he bethought himself that it was time to marry; and he accordingly paid his devotions to a widow, Mrs. Martha Rogers, daughter of Mr. John Butler, himself a merchant, whose dwelling was on the Appomattox a short distance below Petersburg. His affection was reciprocated, and on March 19, 1761, they were married. They lived at Osborne’s until 1765, when they removed to the county of Prince Edward, in the Piedmont region of Virginia, and settled on an estate near Farmville, which they called Cherry Grove, in accordance with the custom of dignifying family homesteads by appropriate names. They were people of cultivation and learning. Mr. Johnston was a member of the Episcopal Church, and all his predilections and opinions were conservative in their tendency and in favor of the crown.

The first child of this union was born at Osborne’s, on January 6, 1763. He was therefore but two years old when the family removed to Prince Edward. The family name of Peter was bestowed upon him.

Although Mr. Johnston was a staunch churchman, he was so warm a friend of learning that he did not hesitate to contribute liberally toward securing greater facilities for education than the colony then enjoyed. At that time the only mode of obtaining a finished education was at the college of William and Mary, at Williamsburg, which in those days of bad roads was quite a journey. Accordingly, when the Presbytery of Hanover interested itself in furthering a move for the foundation of a college under its control in Prince Edward, Mr. Johnston offered to donate one hundred acres of land for the purpose. His offer was accepted on February 2, 1775, and an institution of learning was erected thereon, which has ever since been under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church. It was first called Prince Edward Academy, but in May, 1777, its name was changed to Hampden Sidney, which name it still retains.

Three other sons were born to Mr. and Mrs. Johnston. Determined to give them the best possible education, their father provided private tutors for his sons until they attained sufficient maturity, when he entered them as students at Hampden Sidney. The eldest, Peter, was in attendance there during one of its earliest sessions. Association at college with the zealous youths whose ears were ringing with the stories and exploits of friends or relations in the Continental army, and probably, most of all, a desire to emulate the students   previous term, who in 1777, under their president as captain, had formed a company sixty-five strong and marched to Williamsburg to aid in the defense of the colony, soon effaced the paternal instructions and made of him an ardent patriot. So earnest was he in his opinions, that at the age of seventeen, knowing his father’s views too well to dare consult him, he and a young friend as much of a Hotspur as himself (Clement Carrington, of Charlotte) ran away from college, and in 1780 enlisted in the legion of Light Horse Harry Lee, which was then on its way south to take part with Greene in the ensuing campaign. As they were both provided by the indulgence of their parents with horses while at college, they needed little preparation for their escapade.

Peter Johnston served with Lee’s legion throughout the remainder of the Revolution. Having the hereditary turn for the profession of arms, highly ambitious, and endowed with dauntless courage, he soon made himself known ; and, despite his tender age, had risen by the end of the war to the rank of lieutenant, and had become a favorite with his commander, Colonel Lee, and with the entire legion. This grade in the little armies of the Revolution meant much more than it did later; and for a boy of eighteen to rise to it from the ranks in the space of a year were especially remarkable. In the quaint Anecdotes of the American Revolution, compiled by Alexander Garden, Lieutenant Johnston is frequently mentioned. Thus the basis of the friendship between the families of Lee and Johnston was laid in the last century by the fathers of the two great Southern captains of the civil war— a friendship which, as will hereafter appears was yet closer between their sons. So well had Lieutenant Johnston borne himself during his military service, that on his return to the paternal roof at the close of hostilities his father forgave the truancy and received him with pride and affection; and, on dying, left him the family homestead, in accordance with his English sentiment in favor of the law of primogeniture.

At the end of the Revolution Lieutenant Johnston was not twenty years of age, and it became his next care to select a profession. He chose that of the law, and applied himself to its mastery as assiduously as he had devoted himself to the profession of arms. The result was that he soon rose to prominence both in law and politics, for at that period the two were almost inseparable. His political affiliations were with the Republican party, as the adherents of the Jeffersonian school were then called; and he was a member of the committee which reported the Virginia resolutions of 1798-99 on the question of State rights. In 1788 Lieutenant Peter Johnston married Mary Wood, daughter of Colonel Valentine Wood, of Goochland County. He had formed her acquaintance and won her love while attending on circuit the court of which her father was clerk. The wife of Colonel Wood was Lucy Henry, a sister of Patrick Henry. She was a lady of the highest accomplishments and is said to have equaled her distinguished brother in mental force. Her uncommon conversational powers made her in the family circle as much admired as her brother was on the hustings. The Henry family also was of Scotch origin, being nearly related to Robertson, the historian, and to the eloquent Lord Brougham. Its ramifications in the United States were extensive.

Mrs. Johnston inherited her mother’s talents and attainments. She was so highly educated as to be competent to fit her sons for college not only in the elements of learning, but in the ancient classics as well.

Peter Johnston and his wife resided at the family homestead in Prince Edward for some time after their marriage. They had a large family, consisting of nine sons and one daughter. The eldest, John, was the father of John W. Johnston, who represented Virginia for two terms in the United States Senate subsequent to the civil war. The next, Peter, was a well-known practitioner of law in southwestern Virginia. The third, Charles Clement, named after his father’s companion in arms, was a man of great popularity and of a very high order of eloquence. When quite young he was sent to Congress from the southwest Virginia district, and as an ardent advocate of State rights, took a prominent; part in the exciting debates of the period of 1831-32 on the nullification question. He was accidentally drowned in attempting to cross, during the night, from Alexandria to Washington. His wife was Eliza Madison Preston, of the extensive Virginia family of Prestons. She had predeceased him, so that at his death his two children — a son of about nine and a daughter of about seven—were left orphans. The son adopted the military profession was educated at West Point, and was killed in battle at Contreras in Mexico. The daughter married Judge Robert V. Hughes, now the United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Another son of Peter and Mary Johnston was Beverly Randolph, who attained high eminence at the bar of southwest Virginia. Still another, Edward W., was a well-known writer and editor, who for a time edited the National Intelligencer. His contributions to the press, under the name of II Secretario, were specially admired. At one time intimate with John M. Daniel, who became afterward so well known as the Great War editor of Virginia, they lost their temper in a newspaper discussion over the merits of Powers’s Greek Slave, and fought a duel, the usual mode of settling such controversies at that time. Fortunately, its result was as bare as the statue which caused the quarrel. Another son, Algernon Sidney, was also an editor, and the author of a book called Memoirs of a Nullifier, which made something of a sensation in the exciting times of nullification. The eighth son of this marriage was Joseph Eggleston Johnston, who was born at Cherry Grove, in Prince Edward, on February 3, 1807. He was named after Joseph Eggleston, another military associate of his father, and the captain of the company in Lee’s legion of which his father was lieutenant.

In 1811 Peter Johnston, who had been appointed a judge of the General Court of Virginia, was assigned to the Abingdon circuit, and removed to his new field of labor. He settled at a place which he named Panecillo, in the edge of the town of Abingdon. At that period the country in that section of the State was thinly settled, and the conditions of life exceedingly primitive. The town of Abingdon was then in the heart of the forest, having been first called the Wolf Hills, from the number of wolves which made their den in a cavern at that place. The country is mountainous and rugged; at that time the woods were dense in their primeval growth, and the roads, or trails, few and difficult. The region included in Judge Johnston’s circuit was extensive, and the most convenient mode of travel in attending their courts was on horseback.

The country had then been but recently explored, and was only in process of settlement. Its inhabitants were men whose youth had been spent in contending with the savages for its possession, and who in 1780, under their countryman and leader, General William Campbell, furnished the largest contingent to that suddenly improvised army of mountaineers which annihilated Ferguson’s force at King’s Mountain, and disappeared as mysteriously as they had come, after having in that fight given the first check to the career of victory which till then the British had pursued in the Southern States. Numerous participants in the battle then resided in the neighborhood. The traditions of that wonderful combat which still ring through that country as tradition only were then related by the actors as matters of personal experience and observation. They gave the name of the battle to one of the hills on which the town of Abingdon is built, and fired the minds of the youths with anecdotes of their experience in the campaign and fight, and of their not less thrilling encounters with the Indians. The effect of such narrations on a boy naturally addicted to military matters, especially when reinforced by not less daring exploits of his father, may well be imagined. Young Johnston soon had the boys of the neighborhood, hardly less zealous than himself, organized into an army, as he termed it; and he was chosen as their general, with one of his brothers as colonel. The combined strength of the general and colonel was sufficient to insure and enforce that obedience which is the foundation of discipline.

At that time the country abounded in all sorts of game. Judge Johnston was passionately devoted to the chase, and was accustomed to take his sons with him on his hunting expeditions, which usually extended over great distances and continued for many days. They accompanied him even before they were large enough to handle the long rifle which was the favorite arm of the pioneer, and which in the hands of its hardy owners had proved so efficacious against the enemies of the young republic. As soon as, under his tuition, they had learned to balance it and accurately aim it, they were permitted to take an equal part in the hunt. While the bear was not infrequently the object of their quest, the usual sport was chasing the deer, then very abundant. Joseph also was passionately fond of this amusement, and always preferred to be one of the drivers, as it kept him in motion, instead of fastening him for hours on a stand. In that mountainous region the drivers rode their steeds over places which would strike dismay into an ordinary pedestrian; and such experiences were the best possible training in inuring him to fatigue and hardship, and in accustoming him to danger. To this early experience he owed the constitution which he retained through life, despite numerous wounds and long continued exposure. It also made of him a fine horseman. Striking as was his bearing afoot, he underwent a complete change when he mounted a horse. Perhaps the most vivid recollection of him among those who have seen him was his magnificent bearing when mounted.

He had his first experience in the dangers of military life when he was but ten years of age; and it was brought upon him by his fondness for it. He had gone out with his father and brothers on a hunt a few miles west of Abingdon. He was on horseback, with a colored boy about his own age riding behind him. When they became separated from the others, the conversation turned on warlike themes, and Joseph was describing to the darkey (named Robert) the mode in which cavalry charged infantry and the latter received the shock. Nothing would satisfy him but a practical illustration; so he made Robert dismount, take the gun and place him in position to receive the assault, kneeling with gun presented. Joseph thereupon withdrew the horse to a sufficient distance to obtain the necessary impetus, and thundered down upon the stationary square. The horse, however, not being equally interested in the experiment, sheared off just before reaching the infantry, and did it so suddenly that his rider was thrown forward. Of course he was wounded — he always was on every available occasion. In the fall his leg was broken, the ends of the bone coming through the flesh; yet he quietly lay down till Robert went for aid and returned with it. The first doctor who came was something of an amateur; he set the limb, however, and sewed up the wound as well as he could. Soon afterward a skillful surgeon arrived, who, on examination, found that the leg had been set crooked. He therefore cut out the stitches and reset it. The manner, in which the boy of ten, in a time when anesthetics were not known, endured the operation without a tear or groan, and his patience under the three months of suffering which followed, showed his fortitude.

His education was begun by his parents, both of whom were amply competent to give it, and carried on by them until he became old enough to enter the Academy at Abingdon, which was a fair classical school. He was a good student, and made the most of his opportunities. He retained through life a taste for the classics, as is evidenced by the large number of works of that character in his library. Homer was his special favorite. Increase of years only strengthened his determination to be a soldier, and he adhered to it with a constancy which showed it to be the natural bent of his mind and not a mere boyish fancy. He burned to emulate his father’s revolutionary record and the deeds of his neighbors and relatives of the King’s Mountain campaign. His father did not discourage this predilection, but, on the contrary, presented him, though he was next to the youngest son, with his revolutionary sword. Though he owned this sword from his youth, he did not wear it during his earlier military life, but drew it for the first time in defense of his native State at the outbreak of the civil war. In 1825, at the age of eighteen, he secured, through the influence of James Barbour, United States Senator from Virginia and Secretary of War under President John Q. Adams, an appointment to the Military Academy as a cadet, thus obtaining an entrance into the field of his cherished ambition.

CHAPTER II.EARLY MILITARY LIFE.

In 1825, Joseph E. Johnston, having successfully passed the necessary examination, was admitted as a cadet at West Point. He was one of one hundred and five who were so fortunate as to enter in that year. The institution had then attained a high stand; it was flourishing, its course of study comprehensive and practical, its professors able and zealous. The number of matriculates who received their military education at that epoch of its history, and who subsequently rose to rank and distinction during the Mexican and civil wars, is the strongest testimony to the thorough and judicious nature of its training. The astonishing achievements of the American army during the Mexican War, against largely superior numbers fighting on their own soil to repel foreign invasion, were due as much to the exceptional courage and ability of the young officers of inferior rank as to the talents of the commanding generals. Johnston was one of nine Virginians who then entered the Academy. Another was Robert E. Lee. Slightly older, son of the commander of Johnston’s father in the Revolutionary War, and endowed with tastes and habits of the same nature, they soon became fast friends. They were both imbued with that intense State pride which is a prominent element in the Virginia character; and as the other Virginians, one by one, lagged behind the class, and finally dropped out, their intimacy increased. In their graduating year they were the only remaining representatives of the Old Dominion — a striking instance of the survival of the fittest. There is nothing especially noteworthy in the career of Johnston at West Point. He made the most of his opportunities, and was unremitting in his studies. But during his cadetship a very serious obstacle supervened in an affection of the eyes, which totally debarred him from using them at night, and probably made his graduation mark lower than it would otherwise have been. He completed his course in 1829, being number thirteen in a class of forty-six. Lee was second in the same class, Charles Mason, of New York, standing at the head.

It was at West Point that he imbibed that special fondness for French and astronomy which he retained through life. He was always ready to converse on subjects’ cognate to these studies with the same relish as or, military matters; and his library reflected this predilection, containing valuable treatises on astronomy, French biographies of nearly all the great soldiers of that warlike nation, and French dissertations on all the technique of the military art. These works show by internal evidence that they had been thoroughly mastered, and that he had made himself familiar with the campaigns of the leading generals of history—a strong proof that in the military, as well as in the other departments of human art, application and study are aids that may justly claim a place upon the staff of genius.

Johnston’s first military service was as second lieutenant in the Fourth Artillery; the next, in garrison at New York, followed by similar service at Fortress Mon- roe. This period, extending from 1829 to 1832, was uneventful, being mainly utilized by him in acquiring that knowledge of the soldier’s duty which is essential to success. His first experience in actual campaigning was in the Black Hawk expedition of 1832, under General Scott, in which he participated, though without any opportunity for distinction.

In the fall of this same year the nullification troubles in South Carolina were at their height, and Johnston was with the small body of United States troops stationed at Charleston by President Jackson for the purpose of preserving order. Here the contingencies of civil war were forcibly impressed upon his mind, for three of his brothers resided in Columbia and belonged to the South Carolina minutemen then drilling for the conflict with the United States which everyone expected, and they would have been the first to come into collision with the national forces if matters had proceeded to extremities. Fortunately, events took a turn which prevented them from being confronted in fratricidal strife. From this period till the beginning of 1836 he was on duty at Fortress Monroe and at Fort Macon, North Carolina; and he was also assigned to topographical duty.

In the beginning of 1836 General Scott was ordered to Florida to take charge of operations against the Indians, and Johnston accompanied him as a member of his staff. These operations against the Florida Indians are the least creditable in the history of the Union, and were the grave of many a military reputation. Their long duration and the heavy expenditures of life and treasure necessary to reduce the Indians to submission and to transport them to their reservations west of the Mississippi are well known. At the outset the difficulties were little appreciated, and, as campaign after campaign failed to attain the object desired, disappointment occasioned many feuds among the officers of rank who were connected with the war. But no one, after an actual experience however brief, felt disposed to criticize any one else, lavish as his strictures may have been beforehand.

The expedition led by General Scott suffered just as those which proceeded and those which followed it. The difficulty was not so much to defeat the foe as to find him. The Indians, on the approach of a strong hostile force, scattered to the swamps, in whose inaccessible recesses they defied discovery. The only fights were between small parties on each side, almost invariably commencing with a volley poured into the troops from an unseen foe, and ending by the disappearance of the enemy into morasses yet more impenetrable. The scene of operations