A MEMOIR OF THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICE OF JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON, Once the Quartermaster-General of the Army of the United States, and a General in the Army of the Confederate States of America. CHAPTER I. BEFORE THE WAR. ON September 12, 1862, General Johnston wrote to ΟΝ President Davis, from his headquarters at Manassas, protesting against the relative rank as General assigned him by the President. "It seeks to tarnish my fair fame as a soldier and as a man, earned by more than thirty years of laborious and perilous service. I had but this-the scars of many wounds all honestly taken in my front, and in the front of battle, and my father's revolutionary sword. It was delivered to me from his venerable hand without a stain of dishonor. Its blade is still unblemished, as when it passed from his hand to mine. I drew it in the war not for rank or fame, but to defend the sacred soil, the homes and I hearths, and the women and children, aye, and the men of my Mother Virginia, my native South. It may hereafter be the sword of a general leading armies, or of a private volunteer. But while I live and have an arm to wield it, it shall never be sheathed until the freedom, independence and full rights of the South are achieved. When that is done, it may well be a matter of small concern to the government, to Congress, or to the country, what my rank or lot may be. I shall be satisfied if my country stands among the powers of the world free, powerful and victorious, and that I, as a general, a lieutenant, or a volunteer soldier, have borne my part in the glorious strife and contributed to the final blessed consummation."* I have begun this tribute of love, respect and admiration with this expression of sentiment by Gen. Johnston, because I think it gives the key to his character, and his conduct in the war between the States. The son of a revolutionary soldier, married to the daughter of his father's comrade, all the environment of early growth, and all the influences of mature life, conduced to impress upon his character, sentiments of devotion to duty, and to country, to truth, and to honor, and to develop that chivalry and nobility which were his dominating characteristics. "My Mother Virginia," for whom his father fought under Greene and Lee, for whom he bled in Florida and Mexico, was to him the ideal of a lofty devotion. "My father's revolutionary sword," stainless when it *Memoir of Jefferson Davis, vol. 2, page 151. |