Joseph E. Johnston: 30 Bullet Holes, a Feud With Davis, Sherman's Funeral

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Joseph Eggleston Johnston, born in 1807 into a prominent Virginia family whose mother was a niece of Patrick Henry, graduated from West Point in 1829, 13th in the class in which Robert E. Lee finished second. Trained as a civil engineer, he was ambushed as a civilian topographic engineer in the Second Seminole War, reportedly with some 30 bullet holes through his clothing and a scar across his scalp. He was wounded by grapeshot at Cerro Gordo and again at Chapultepec, and by 1860 he was quartermaster general of the U.S. Army.

After Virginia seceded, Johnston was the highest-ranking U.S. officer to resign, yet Jefferson Davis ranked him fourth among the Confederacy's full generals, arguing his general's star had been a staff rank. Johnston's furious reply began a feud that shaped the war. He deferred to Beauregard at First Bull Run, was wounded at Seven Pines and replaced by Lee, saw Davis go around him at Vicksburg, and was removed before Atlanta for his Fabian retreats against Sherman. In 1865 he surrendered nearly 90,000 troops at Bennett Place, the largest surrender of the war.

• Winfield Scott remarked that Johnston had an unfortunate knack for getting himself shot in nearly every engagement.
• When Lee brought news that Johnston's nephew Preston had been killed in Mexico, the two officers wept together.
• Davis ordered John Pemberton to hold Vicksburg at all costs, overriding Johnston's order to abandon the city and save the army.
• Sherman issued 10 days of rations to Johnston's surrendered troops, and Grant later wrote that Johnston's tactics were right.
• At Sherman's funeral in 1891, Johnston, 84, kept his hat off in freezing rain, caught a cold that became pneumonia, and died a month later.