| Civil War
Confederate Major General Johnson was born in
Belmont County, Ohio on 17 Oct 1817 to a Quaker
family. Despite his upbringing, he became a West
Point cadet and in 1840 graduated from the United
States Military Academy. He was commissioned a
second lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Infantry and
fought in the Seminole War in Florida. During the
Mexican War he was relegated to a post of
commissary officer, but in 1847 after being
accused of selling contraband goods, he was
forced to resign and thereafter became a teacher
at the Western Military Institute and the
University of Nashville. During that period, Johnson was also
active in the state militias of Kentucky and
Tennessee and when the Civil War broke out, he
entered the service as a colonel of engineers in
the Tennessee Militia. This militia shortly after
became a part of the Confederate States Army.
Instrumental in
the construction of Fort Donelson on the
Cumberland River, Johnson there commanded a wing
of the army but was effectively overshadowed by
the more politically astute Brig. General Gideon
J. Pillow, who led the wing in a fierce assault
in an attempt to break out and escape from the
encircled fort. The fort and its army surrendered
to Major General Ulysses S. Grant on February 16,
1862, but Johnson was able to walk unimpeded
through Union lines and escaped capture.
Johnson then
commanded a brigade of the Army of Mississippi at
the Battle of Shiloh, and was severely wounded by
the concussion of an artillery shell. After his
recovery, he led his brigade in Bragg's invasion
of Kentucky and the Battle of Perryville,
followed by Stones River, Chickamauga, and, under
James Longstreet, the Siege of Knoxville.
Promoted to major
general in May of 1864, Johnson served with the
Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee. He
commanded a division in the section of trenches
manned by the South Carolinian troops in the
Battle of the Crater. They captured three stands
of colors and 130 prisoners that day. His men
spent the remainder of the Siege of Petersburg in
the trenches, ending up at the Battle of White
Oak Road and Battle of Five Forks. The division
was shattered at the Battle of Sayler's Creek,
yet he was once again able to escape and was
later paroled at Appomattox Court House without a
command.
Following the War,
he moved to Illinois and became a farmer. He died
in Brighton, at the age of sixty-three on 12 Sept
1880 and was buried in Miles Station Cemetery in
Macoupin county. In 1975 his remains were removed
and he was ultimately laid to rest beside his
wife Mary at the Old Nashville City Cemetery.
A ceremony
honoring him and placing an historical marker on
his grave by the Major General Bushrod Johnson
Camp #1718 of Granite City, Illinois took place
at the Nashville City Cemetery on 16 Aug 1996.
|
| BIOGRAPHICAL
SOURCES: Confederate Military History, vol. X, p.
318 - Ancestry.com; General Officers of the
Confederate States of America - Wikipedia;
Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate
Commanders by Ezra J. Warner, Louisiana State
University Press, 1959; Civil War High Commands
by John H., and David J. Eicher, Stanford
University Press, 2001; Yankee Quaker Confederate
General: The Curious Career of Bushrod Rust
Johnson by Charles M. Cummings, Fairleigh
Dickinson University Press, 1971; Where the South
Lost the War: An Analysis of the Fort Henry -
Fort Donelson Campaign, February 1862 by Gott,
Kendall D. Gott, Stackpole books, 2003. |
