Albert Sidney Johnston

Albert Sidney Johnston 1803-62, Confederate general, b. Washington, Ky. After serving in the Black Hawk War, he resigned (1834) from the U.S. army and went to Texas where he enlisted (1835) in the revolutionary army. Johnston became its commander in 1837 and served as Texas secretary of war, 1838-40. In the Mexican War, he commanded a regiment of volunteers and saw action at Monterrey. Reentering the U.S. army in 1849, Johnston served on the Texas frontier, was commander of the Dept. of Texas (1856-58), led the expedition against the Mormons (1857), and commanded the Dept. of Utah (1858-60). When Texas seceded from the Union in Apr., 1861, Johnston, commanding the Dept. of the Pacific, again resigned his commission in the U.S. army and was soon made general in charge of Confederate operations in the West. Union victories, especially at Fort Donelson (Feb., 1862), forced him to withdraw from the line of defense he had established in 1861. He concentrated an army at Corinth, Miss., and on Apr. 6, 1862, attacked Ulysses S. Grant at Shiloh (see Shiloh, battle of ). Johnston was killed at the height of battle.

Bibliography: See biography by his son W. P. Johnston (1878, repr. 1964); C. P. Roland, Albert Sidney Johnston (1987).

Johnston, Albert Sidney (1803–62) Confederate general, born in Washington, Kentucky. Johnston was in command of the vast lands stretching from the Appalachian Mountains to the Indian Territory and was killed at Shiloh (1862). Before joining the Confederate forces, Johnston had a distinguished military career with the U.S. Army. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy, he fought in the Black Hawk War (1832) before becoming active in the Texas War of Independence (1836). He served as senior brigadier general of the Texas army. As Texas's secretary of war, he conducted the successful Cherokee campaigns of 1839. After a decade in civilian life, he returned to the military during the Mexican War (1846–48) and served with distinction at the battle of Monterrey (1846). In 1857–58 he commanded an expedition against the Mormons in Utah, marching unopposed into Salt Lake City. Johnston resigned from the U.S. Army when Texas seceded.

Johnston was the father of William Preston Johnston, who wrote his biography.