Civil War
When the Southern states began seceding from the Union, Duncan reentered military service, this time as an enemy of the United States Army. He enlisted in the CSA forces as a colonel of the 1st Louisiana Regular Artillery Regiment and rose in rank and status rather quickly. Promoted to brigadier general of Louisiana troops on January 7, 1862, he was assigned to command the defenses of New Orleans and the Lower Mississippi, and he quickly became widely known as one of the finest artillerists in that region. He commanded Forts Jackson and St. Philip at the time of their capture by Admiral David Farragut on April 25, 1862, and became a prisoner of war. After being exchanged, Duncan was assigned to the staff of General Braxton Bragg, becoming Chief of Staff.
Johnson K. Duncan contracted a malarial fever and died far from his native York County at Knoxville, Tennessee, at the age of only 36. He was buried in the McGavock Confederate Cemetery on the Carnton Plantation in Franklin, Tennessee.
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Famous quotes related to civil war:
“At Hayes’ General Store, west of the cemetery, hangs an old army rifle, used by a discouraged Civil War veteran to end his earthly troubles. The grocer took the rifle as payment ‘on account.’”
—Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)