A Year of Glory
June 1862 - June 1863
Spotlight



Joseph Eggleston Johnston, General, CSA

Joseph E. Johnston was born in Farmville, VA, February 3, 1807. He entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1825 and graduated 13th in a class of 46, in 1829. He served in the Sac and Fox wars, the Florida Indian Wars and the Mexican War with distinction. He was serving in the staff grade of Brigadier General as Quartermaster General of the US Army (with a permanent grade of Lt. Colonel) when he resigned his commission following the secession of Virginia from the Union. Initially appointed a brigadier general in the Confederate Army, he was promoted to full general on August 31, 1861 to rank from July 4th. In May of 1861, he was sent to command rebel forces in Harper's Ferry, VA. It was his ability to slip away from the Union forces in the vicinity of Harper's Ferry and come to the aid of Gen. PGT Beauregard at Manassas that turned the tide of that battle in favor of the Confederacy. After the battle he was named Commander of Confederate Forces in Northern Virginia and it was in that capacity that he faced Gen. George B. McClellan in front of Richmond, Virginia during the latter's Peninsula Campaign. While directing the battle of Seven Pines, May 31-June 1, 1862, he was wounded, carried from the field, and subsequently replaced first by Gen. Gustavus Smith, and then by Gen. Robert E. Lee. He returned to duty in November, 1862 and was sent to command rebel forces in the west. Falling in and out of favor with President Jefferson Davis, he carried out a series of duties including his command of the Army of Tennessee in the winter of 1863-4. He was removed from command in July 1864 and idled away his time until recalled to active service in February 1865. He attempted to rally rebel forces in the Carolinas but was ultimately forced to surrender on April 26, 1865. In the post war years, he served in the House of Representatives in Virginia, and as Commissioner of Railroads. He published his Narrative of Military Operations in 1874. He died on March 21, 1891 and was buried in Baltimore, Maryland.

"No action of the war has been so little understood as that of Seven Pines. The Southern people have felt no interest in it, because, being unfinished in consequence of the disabling of the commander, they saw no advantage derived from it; and the Federal Commanders claimed the victory because the Confederate Forces did not renew the battle on Sunday, and fell back to their camps on Monday."


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