Sir William’s nephew, Guy Johnson (1740-1788), succeeded his uncle as superintendent of Indian affairs in 1774, and served in the French and Indian War and, on the British side, in the War of Independence.
See W. L. Stone, Life of Sir William Johnson (2 vols., 1865); W. E. Griffis, Sir William Johnson and the Six Nations (1891) in “Makers of America” series; Augustus C. Buell, Sir William Johnson (1903) in “Historic Lives Series”; and J. Watts De Peyster, “The Life of Sir John Johnson, Bart.,” in The Orderly Book of Sir John Johnson during the Oriskany Campaign, 1776-1777, annotated by William L. Stone (1882).
JOHNSTON, ALBERT SIDNEY (1803-1862), American Confederate general in the Civil War, was born at Washington, Mason county, Kentucky, on the 3rd of February 1803. He graduated from West Point in 1826, and served for eight years in the U.S. infantry as a company officer, adjutant, and staff officer. In 1834 he resigned his commission, emigrated in 1836 to Texas, then a republic, and joined its army as a private. His rise was very rapid, and before long he was serving as commander-in-chief in preference to General Felix Huston, with whom he fought a duel. From 1838 to 1840 he was Texan secretary for war, and in 1839 he led a successful expedition against the Cherokee Indians. From 1840 to the outbreak of the Mexican War he lived in retirement on his farm, but in 1846 he led a regiment of Texan volunteers in the field, and at Monterey, as a staff officer, he had three horses shot under him. In 1849 he returned to the United States army as major and paymaster, and in 1855 became colonel of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry (afterwards 5th), in which his lieut.-colonel was Robert E. Lee, and his majors were Hardee and Thomas. In 1857 he commanded the expedition sent against the Mormons, and performed his difficult and dangerous mission so successfully that the objects of the expedition were attained without bloodshed. He was rewarded with the brevet of brigadier-general. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861 Johnston, then in command of the Pacific department, resigned his commission and made his way to Richmond, where Pres. Jefferson Davis, whom he had known at West Point, at once made him a full general in the Confederate army and assigned him to command the department of Kentucky. Here he had to guard a long and weak line from the Mississippi to the Alleghany Mountains, which was dangerously advanced on account of the political necessity of covering friendly country. The first serious advance of the Federals forced him back at once, and he was freely criticized and denounced for what, in ignorance of the facts, the Southern press and people regarded as a weak and irresolute defence. Johnston himself, who had entered upon the Civil War with the reputation of being the foremost soldier on either side, bore with fortitude the reproaches of his countrymen, and Davis loyally supported his old friend. Johnston then marched to join Beauregard at Corinth, Miss., and with the united forces took the offensive against Grant’s army at Pittsburg Landing. The battle of Shiloh (q.v.) took place on the 6th and 7th of April, 1862. The Federals were completely surprised, and Johnston was in the full tide of success when he fell mortally wounded. He died a few minutes afterwards. President Davis said, in his message to the Confederate Congress, “Without doing injustice to the living, it may safely be said that our loss is irreparable,” and the subsequent history of the war in the west went far to prove the truth of his eulogy.
His son, William Preston Johnston (1831-1899), who served on the staff of General Johnston and subsequently on that of President Davis, was a distinguished professor and president of Tulane University. His chief work is the Life of General Albert Sidney Johnston (1878), a most valuable and exhaustive biography.
JOHNSTON, ALEXANDER (1849-1889), American historian, was born in Brooklyn, New York, on the 29th of April 1849. He studied at the Polytechnic institute of Brooklyn, graduated at Rutgers College in 1870, and was admitted to the bar in 1875 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he taught in the Rutgers College grammar school from 1876 to 1879. He was principal of the Latin school of Norwalk, Connecticut, in 1879-1883, and was professor of jurisprudence and political economy in the College of New Jersey (Princeton University) from 1884 until his death in Princeton, N.J., on the 21st of July 1889. He wrote A History of American Politics (1881); The Genesis of a New England State—Connecticut (1883), in “Johns Hopkins University Studies”; A History of the United States for Schools (1886); Connecticut (1887) in the “American Commonwealths Series”; the article on the history of the United States for the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, reprinted as The United Stales: Its History and Constitution (1887); a chapter on the history of American political parties in the seventh volume of Winsor’s Narrative and Critical History of America, and many articles on the history of American politics in Lalor’s Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Political Economy, and Political History of the United States (1881-1884). These last articles, which like his other writings represent much original research and are excellent examples of Johnston’s rare talent for terse narrative and keen analysis and interpretation of facts, were republished in two volumes entitled American Political History 1763-1876 (1905-1906), edited by Professor J. A. Woodburn.
JOHNSTON, ALEXANDER KEITH (1804-1871), Scottish geographer, was born at Kirkhill near Edinburgh on the 28th of December 1804. After an education at the high school and the university of Edinburgh he was apprenticed to an engraver; and in 1826 joined his brother (afterwards Sir William Johnston, lord provost of Edinburgh) in a printing and engraving business, the well-known cartographical firm of W. and A. K. Johnston. His interest in geography had early developed, and his first important work was the National Atlas of general geography, which gained for him in 1843 the appointment of Geographer-Royal for Scotland. Johnston was the first to bring the study of physical geography into competent notice in England. His attention had been called to the subject by Humboldt; and after years of labour he published his magnificent Physical Atlas in 1848, followed by a second and enlarged edition in 1856. This, by means of maps with descriptive letterpress, illustrates the geology, hydrography, meteorology, botany, zoology, and ethnology of the globe. The rest of Johnston’s life was devoted to geography, his later years to its educational aspects especially. His services were recognized by the leading scientific societies of Europe and America. He died at Ben Rhydding, Yorkshire, on the 9th of July 1871. Johnston published a Dictionary of Geography in 1850, with many later editions; The Royal Atlas of Modern Geography, begun in 1855; an atlas of military geography to accompany Alison’s History of Europe in 1848 seq.; and a variety of other atlases and maps for educational or scientific purposes. His son of the same name (1844-1879) was also the author of various geographical works and papers; in 1873-1875 he was geographer to a commission for the survey of Paraguay; and he died in Africa while leading the Royal Geographical Society’s expedition to Lake Nyasa.