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==Civil War==
==Civil War==
===Service in Virginia===
===Service in Virginia===
At the onset of the Civil War, Johnston was a Brigadier Genreal in the [[US Army]], serving as Quartermaster General. When Virginia seceded, he resigned his commission to join the fledgling Confederacy, the highest-ranking officer to do so. He was in command during the [[First Battle of Bull Run]], although he delegated command on the field to his second-in-command, P. G. T. Beauregard, who was more acquainted with the battlefield. In recognition of that victory, Johnston was promoted to command the Confederate forces defending Virginia against the Union Army of the Potomac. His relations to Confederate President [[Jefferson Davis]] were strained, however, when Davis revealed the ranks of the Confederate full generals. Johnston, who considered himself the highest-ranking soldier of the Confederacy because he had outranked his colleagues in the US Army, was placed fourth, behind Samuel Cooper, Albert Sidney Johnston and [[Robert E. Lee]]. Johnston sent Davis an acerbic letter of protest, the beginning of a severe deterioration of their relation that led to a complete breakdown later in the war.
At the onset of the Civil War, Johnston was a Brigadier Genreal in the [[US Army]], serving as Quartermaster General. When Virginia seceded, he resigned his commission to join the fledgling Confederacy, the highest-ranking officer to do so. He was in command during the [[First Battle of Bull Run]], although he delegated command on the field to his second-in-command, P. G. T. Beauregard, who was more acquainted with the battlefield. In recognition of that victory, Johnston was promoted to command the Confederate forces defending Virginia against the Union Army of the Potomac. His relations to Confederate President [[Jefferson Davis]] were strained, however, when Davis revealed the ranks of the Confederate full generals. Johnston, who considered himself the highest-ranking soldier of the Confederacy because he had outranked his colleagues in the US Army, was placed fourth, behind Samuel Cooper, Albert Sidney Johnston and [[Robert E. Lee]]. Johnston sent Davis an acerbic letter of protest, the beginning of a severe deterioration of their relation that led to a complete breakdown later in the war.
===Department No. 2 and Vicksburg===
===Department No. 2 and Vicksburg===
When Johnston had recovered, he was assigned command of Department no. 2, a vast district containing most of the Confederacy between the Appalachians and the Mississippi, where he was to ensure cooperation between the field armies of [[Braxton Bragg]] in Tennessee and John C. Pemberton in Mississippi.
When Johnston had recovered, he was assigned command of Department no. 2, a vast district containing most of the Confederacy between the Appalachians and the Mississippi, where he was to ensure cooperation between the field armies of [[Braxton Bragg]] in Tennessee and John C. Pemberton in Mississippi. When Union general [[Ulysses S. Grant]] seriously threatened Vicksburg in early May 1863, Johnston hurried there. When he arrived at Mississippi's capitol of Jackson, 40 miles east of Vicksburg, Grant had already interposed his troops between Jackson and Vicksburg, making cooperation between Johnston and Pemberton difficult. Johnston ordered Pemberton to evacuate Vicksburg and save his army, but Pemberton delayed. By May 4, Grant had dispached two corps under [[William T. Sherman]] to drive Johnston from Jackson; Johnston, who at that time only had about 6,000 men, retreated. When Pemberton was defeated by the remainder of Grant's army on May 6 at the battle of Champion Hill, the fate of Vicksburg's defenders was sealed. While Johnston hovered in the vicinity with all the reinforcements he could gather, he never reached a strength sufficient to take on Grant, and communication with Vicksburg became so difficult that a coordinated attack on Grant from both sides became impossible. After a long siege, Vicksburg surrendered on July 4. Grant immediately dispached Sherman with overwhelming force to once again drive Johnston from Jackson.
===Atlanta Campaign===
===Atlanta Campaign===
When Braxton Bragg's Army of Tennessee was defeated by Union forces under Grant at thebattle of Chattanooga in November 1863, Jefferson Davis reluctantly removed Bragg from command and sent Johnston. Davis' confidence in Johnston had declined severely after the Vicksburg debacle, with Davis blaming the fall of Vicksburg on "a lack of provisions inside, and a general outside who wouldn't fight". Johnston proceeded to reorganize and re-equip the Army of Tennessee, a task well-suited to his administrative talents. He took a strong defensive position at Dalton, on the railroad connecting Chattanooga to [[Atlanta]]. Davis wanted Johnston to take the offensive as soon as possible, but Johnston, being outnumbered by his Union opponents, preferred to remain on the defensive until the Union armies had been defeated in battle and weakened. He also claimed insufficient wagons and horses to supply his army when on the offensive.
By spring 1864, Johnston had been reinforced by Leonidas Polk's troops from Mississippi. His opponent was Sherman, who had succeeded Grant as Union commander of the western theaer. Sherman engaged in a campaign of manoeuver, time and again outflanking Johnston, who retreated from one fortified position along the railroad to the next. Twice during this retreat towards Atlanta Johnston tried to offer a battle. The first time, his subordinates Polk and John Bell Hood claimed their lines could be enfiladed by Union artillery and could not be held. The second time Johnston tried to annihilate a separated column of Sherman's troops while it was out of supporting range of the rest of Sherman's army, but Hood, who commanded the attacking forces, canceled the attack when Union troops surprisingly appeared on his flank.
By June 27, Johnston and Sherman had reached Kenesaw Mountain, one of the last mountains of north [[Georgia]] before Atlanta. Again Johston assumed a fortified position, but here Sherman believed Johnston had streched his forces too thin and ordered a frontal assault. The battle of Kenesaw Mountain was a bloody repulse for Sherman, but it did not suffice to cancel Sherman's numerical superiority, and when he resumed outflanking, Johnston once again retreated.
Meanwhile Jefferson Davis became alerted by Johnston's repeated retreats and inquired about Johnston's plans for the defence of Atlanta, an important railroad hub. Johnston's explanations were unsatisfactory for Davis, partly because Johnston believed he had to remain on the defensive and to adapt his actions to the enemy's, partly because Johnston was secretive and did not like to reveal his plans to politicians who, in Johnston's opinion, could not be trusted to keep a secret. Finally Davis dispatched Braxton Bragg, then the President's military advisor. When Bragg reported that he couldn't tell whether Johnston had any plans, Davis dismissed Johnston on July 17, 1864 and replaced him with John Bell Hood, after Polk's death in battle the Army of Tennessee's senior corps commander and renowned for his aggressiveness.
===Carolinas===
===Carolinas===
Davis was forced to recall Johnston, who remained popular with the public and with the soldiers, for the 1865 spring campaign after Hood had been defeated at Nashville and Sherman had [[Sherman's March through Georgia|marched through Georgia]]. Sherman now threatened the Carolinas, but Confederate manpower was depleted. Johnston commanded an assortment of garrison troops and the remnants of the Army of Tennessee, but his strength never even reached half Sherman's. Johnston still managed to repulse one of Sherman's columns at the Battle of Bentonville, [[North Carolina]] on March 19-21, but when Union reinforcements arrived, he was forced to retreat.
By early April the Confederate situation became desperate. Johnston suggested joining his forces with [[Robert E. Lee]]'s Army of Northern Virginia, then besieged by Grant at Richmond. The combined Confederate forces could then try and defeat Grant and Sherman separately. When Lee had to abandon Richmond, he retreated towards Johnston, but Grant's troops caught up with him at Appomattox Court House and forced Lee's surrender.
Johnston now considered the Confederate cause lost and advised Davis to surrender. Davis believed a guerilla campaign might still succeed, but allowed Johnston to open negotiations with Sherman. Johnston and Sherman agreed to terms very generous to the south, touching not only a military capitulation but also the south's political future. When Sherman submitted these terms to Washington for approval, he was rebuffed by President [[Andrew Johnson]], and Grant was dispatched to secure a purely military capitulation. On April 26, 1865, Johnston agreed to the terms Grant had granted Lee and surrendered the Army of Tennessee and the entire military district of the Carolinas, Georgia and [[Florida]].
==Post-War life==
==Post-War life==
==References==
==References==
*[http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Joseph_E_Johnston.htm]
*[http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/Joseph_E_Johnston.htm]
*[http://books.google.com/books?id=ykSEvcmi4owC&dq=joseph+e+johnston&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=AW9G8zhqId&sig=uE1lmBseTxsUjGj3Xv2HYh7t0Z0#PPA437,M1]
*[http://books.google.com/books?id=ykSEvcmi4owC&dq=joseph+e+johnston&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=AW9G8zhqId&sig=uE1lmBseTxsUjGj3Xv2HYh7t0Z0#PPA437,M1]
*http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1861/october/general-joseph-e-johnston.htm
*http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/civil-war/1861/october/general-joseph-e-johnston.htm
*The New Lexicon Dictionary of the English Language, Webster. (c) 1992 Lexicon Publications, INC.
*The New Lexicon Dictionary of the English Language, Webster. (c) 1992 Lexicon Publications, INC.
==Primary sources==
*Joseph E. Johnston, ''Narrative of Military Operations During the Civil War'', New York 1874. Johnston's memoirs, quite self-serving and continuing his feuds with Jefferson Davis and John Bell Hood.
[[Category:American Civil War Commanders]]
[[Category:American Civil War Commanders]]