Albert
Sidney Johnston was born in Washington, Kentucky, on 2nd February,
1803. He was educated at the U.S. Military Academy at West
Point in 1826. He left the United States
Army to join the army in Texas where he became chief commander
and secretary of war.
Johnston returned to the United States Army
during the Mexican War (1846-48) and
in 1857 President James Buchanan sent
him to Utah with federal troops to remove Brigham
Young from power. Johnston commanded the Department of the Pacific
until the outbreak of the American Civil
War.
Commissioned as a general in the Confederate
Army in May, 1861, he was given command of all troops west of
the Alleghenies.
In April,
1862, Johnston and Pierre T. Beauregard
reunited their armies near the Tennessee-Mississippi line. With 55,000
men they now outnumbered the forces led by Ulysses
S. Grant. On 6th April the Confederate
Army attacked Grant's army at Shiloh.
Taken by surprise, Grant's army suffered heavy losses until the arrival
of General Don Carlos Buell and reinforcements.
During the fighting on 6th April, 1862, Johnston was hit in the leg
by a bullet. Albert Sidney Johnston ignored the wound and continued
fighting until the heavy loss of blood led to him losing consciousness
and bleeding to death. This was a terrible blow to the Confederate
Army. The leader of the Union Army,
General Ulysses Grant, later stated: "his
contemporaries at West Point, and officers generally who came to know
him personally later and who remained on our side, expected him to
prove the most formidable man to meet that the Confederacy would produce."
(1)
Ulysses Grant, Personal Memoirs of
U. S. Grant (1885)
General
Albert Sidney Johnston, who commanded the Confederate forces at the
beginning of the battle at Shiloh, was disabled by a wound on the
afternoon of the first day. This wound, as I understood afterwards,
was not necessarily fatal, or even dangerous. But he was a man who
would not abandon what he deemed an important trust in the face of
danger and consequently continued in the saddle, commanding, until
so exhausted by the loss of blood that he had to be taken from his
horse, and soon after died.
I had known Johnston slightly in the Mexican War and later as an officer
in the regular army. He was a man of high character and ability. His
contemporaries at West Point, and officers generally who came to know
him personally later and who remained on our side, expected him to
prove the most formidable man to meet that the Confederacy would produce.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
