Yankee Quaker, Confederate general
Subtitle: the curious career of Bushrod Rust Johnson
By: [by] Charles M. Cummings.
Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
Published: 1971
Place of publication: Rutherford [N.J.]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 417
Subjects: Johnson, Bushrod Rust, 1817-1880.
Description: Are there any other biographies born loser? Most life stories deal with figures who triumphed, even in defeat. This one is of a non-hero, poor material from myth and legend. Gen. Johnson is average, ambitious, harassed, confused, and ill-stared, and he does foolish things for which he suffers. He enjoys a few glorious moments. Generally he tries to do his best. But he is ignored and passed over; his success is scant. He is akin to most of mankind. Johnson fails, ultimately, in everything he attempts: in his military career in both the U.S. and the Confederate Army, in his school operations, and even in his marriage. Born in Ohio, Bushrod Johnson affronted his Quaker heritage by entering West Point in 1836, from which he graduated with two union immortals of the Civil War, William T. Sherman and George Thomas. During the Mexican War he was forced to resign as First Lieut., Third US Infantry Regiment in 1847.^

He had written to a superior about profits that could be made in the "black-market" of Vera Cruz. Two modern successful schools trace their descent from the military academy in Kentucky and Tennessee that Johnson next operated, but the guns at Fort Sumter closed his classes in 1861. To return to the Union Army would revise the old scandal, so he joined the Confederacy's forces at the same time that his own abolitionist kinfolk were helping the underground railroad in Indiana. Johnson's troops did most of the fighting at Fort Donelson; he slipped away from his captors after the surrender to Grant. Then he was wounded at Shiloh. His brigade spearheaded the assault on the union center at Perryville. First perceived the "gap" in Rosecrans lines at Chickamauga, he led the smashing attack that set off the disintegration of the Union right wing, which was saved from complete route only by the stand of his classmate George Thomas on Snodgrass Hill. Johnson was promoted to Maj. Gen.^

after stalwart service at Drewry's Bluff and commanded the troops blown up by the federal mine at Petersburg, where he made a poor showing before Lee. At Sayler's Creek Johnson, Pickett, and Richard Heron Anderson joined the panicky flight of half of Lee's army from Sheridan's cavalry and the Union VI Corps. For this, Lee took away their commands and ordered them out of his ranks just before he surrendered at Appomattox. But the Tennesseans he led in battle never forgot Bushrod Rust Johnson. 50 years after the war his veterans regretted that "justice to this true and fine soldier had been very tardy."--Publisher.
Notes: Bibliography: p. 385-394.