Civil War
After the start of the Civil War, Johnson entered the service June 28, 1861, as a colonel of engineers in the Tennessee Militia, and a week later this commission was changed to be in the Confederate States Army. He was instrumental in the construction of Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River in Tennessee and was promoted to brigadier general on January 24, 1862. Just days before the Battle of Fort Donelson he was placed in command of the fort but served in that capacity only briefly as the higher ranking Brig. Gen. Gideon J. Pillow arrived only hours after Johnson assumed command. He commanded a division of the army at Donelson, but was effectively overshadowed by the more politically astute Pillow, who led the wing in a fierce assault in an attempt to break out and escape from the encircled fort. The fort and its army surrendered to Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on February 16, 1862, but two days later Johnson was able to walk unimpeded out through the porous Union Army lines and escaped capture.
Johnson commanded a brigade of the Army of Mississippi at the Battle of Shiloh, and on the second day of battle, April 7, 1862, he became the division commander, but was severely wounded by the concussion of an artillery shell. After recovering from his injury, he led his brigade in Gen. Braxton Bragg's invasion of Kentucky and the Battle of Perryville, followed by Stones River, the Tullahoma Campaign, Chickamauga, and, under Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, the Siege of Knoxville.
Promoted to major general on May 21, 1864, the remainder of Johnson's service was with the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee. Johnson commanded a division in the section of trenches manned by the South Carolinian troops in the Battle of the Crater. They captured three stands of colors and 130 prisoners that day. His men spent the remainder of the Siege of Petersburg in the trenches, ending up at the Battle of White Oak Road and Battle of Five Forks. His division was shattered at Battle of Sayler's Creek on April 6, 1865, although he was able to escape personally. He was paroled at Appomattox Court House without a command.
Read more about this topic: Bushrod Johnson
Famous quotes by civil war:
“He was high and mighty. But the kindest creature to his slaves—and the unfortunate results of his bad ways were not sold, had not to jump over ice blocks. They were kept in full view and provided for handsomely in his will. His wife and daughters in the might of their purity and innocence are supposed never to dream of what is as plain before their eyes as the sunlight, and they play their parts of unsuspecting angels to the letter.”
—Anonymous Antebellum Confederate Women. Previously quoted by Mary Boykin Chesnut in Mary Chesnut’s Civil War, edited by C. Vann Woodward (1981)