Who is general J.E. Johnston?

Answer 1

Joseph E. Johnston was perhaps the most talented General in the South, and he won the war's first Battle (Bull Run), using masterfully subtle tactics.

But there were certain contradictions about him.

He was brave under fire, yet often mysteriously absent from the firing line.

He was probably the best-educated General in America, yet he could not issue clear written orders, and his memoirs are quite unreadable.

He was the most senior General to resign his commission to join the Confederates, yet he was ranked only fourth out of five.

He quarrelled badly with the Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, an ex-regular officer who was badly out of his depth as a strategist, and also as a chooser and handler of Generals.

To his cost, he is most identified with the long retreat towards Atlanta, when he tried to conserve his manpower, knowing that replacements were running out. Although this was a wise decision, as well as a brilliant example of a tactical retreat, it was simply not the 'Confederate thing to do', and he was fired.

At Sherman's funeral on a freezing day in New York in 1891, Johnston insisted on standing bare-headed, although friends warned him he would catch his death of cold.

He said "If that were me lying there, Sherman would uncover his head."

Johnston did in fact catch a cold that turned to pneumonia, and he died the same month - perhaps in the end, a 'Confederate thing to do'.