A comprehensive biography by his son, who served on his staff & later with Jeff Davis. Johnston served as a private in the Republic of Texas army, an officer in the U.S. Infantry, and a general in the Confederate Army, Johnston was killed at Shiloh.

One ordinarily thinks of General Albert Sidney Johnston merely as the Confederate general who lost his life at the Battle of Shiloh April 6, 1862. In reality, Johnston was a general in three different armies: the United States Army, the Republic of Texas, and the Confederate States Army. Compared to his service in these armies, his time in the Confederate Army was relatively short, and he died too soon in the war to have established a martial standing along with a Lee or a Jackson. Johnston had participated in a wide range of fighting, seeing action in the Black Hawk War, the War for Texas Independence, the Mexican War, the Mormon War in Utah, and finally the War Between the States, commonly called the "American Civil War." Highly regarded as one of the best generals in the Confederate army by President Jefferson Davis, he has the distinction of being the highest-ranking Union or Confederate officer killed during "Civil War." Who better to write the biography of this exemplary soldier than his son, William Preston Johnston? The younger Johnson's biography of his father, published in 1878, is unrivaled to this day. It is the "go to" book for anyone wishing to study the life of this remarkable man and those like him who did so much to forge the nation into one that would stretch entirely across the continent. This is a long book, but still one that will hold the reader's interest. It is also a "keeper" as a reference book to the student of American history, particularly of the 19th century wars. Foreign phrases have been translated by the editor and explanatory notes have been added as an aid for the contemporary reader. Anyone interested in history or adventure will enjoy this book.

" With a new foreword by Gary W. Gallagher Selected as one of the best one hundred books ever written on the Civil War by Civil War Times Illustrated and by Civil War: The Magazine of the Civil War Society A new, revised edition of the only full-scale biography of the Confederacy's top-ranking field general during the opening campaigns of the Civil War.

The author of "Lee: A Historian's Assessment" turns the spotlight on Albert Sidney Johnston, considered the Confederacy's greatest general before he was cut down in battle at Shiloh in 1862. Photos & maps.

The Life of Albert Sidney Johnston, selected by John H. Jenkins III as one of the basic Texas books, reads like a litany of the important events in the life of the Texas Republic and early statehood through the Civil War. A native Kentuckian and 1826 graduate of West Point, and a veteran of the Black Hawk War, Johnston arrived in Texas in 1836 shortly after the battle of San Jacinto and enlisted as a private in the Texas Army. Soon discovered in the ranks, he was immediately appointed the army's adjutant general. His injury from a duel with Felix Huston later prevented his taking command of the army. In 1838 he was appointed Texas' Secretary of War, and later led the expedition against the Cherokee Indians in East Texas. He commanded the 1st Texas Rifle Volunteers dring the Mexican War and became a regular officer in the US Army--one of the few Texas military men permitted to do so. At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, Johnston was offered a position second in rank only to the aging Winfield Scott, but he refused the Federal government's offer and instead became commander of the Confederacy's Department No. 2, the Western Department. Keenly aware of the military weakness of the South, he issued a call for men at Bowling Green, Kentucky, and formed and drilled his army. On April 6, 1862, Johnston was killed at the battle of Shiloh. The author, Johnston's son, presents "a whole picture of the character of a difficult, generally taciturn man, and defends his actions in a balanced, scholarly manner." The son, having access to all of his father's private correspondence and papers, including his complete Confederate archives, was able to provide anecdotes only a son could know, and was able to persuade many of his father's associates to submit memoirs about him. Never before reprinted since its last publication in 1878, this new volume is of inestimable value and interest to historians and to other readers of Civil War history and early Texas history. This edition contains a new introduction by Charles P. Roland, author of Albert Sidney Johnston: Soldier of Three Republics, and Jefferson Davis's Greatest General: Albert Sidney Johnston (McWhiney Foundation Press, 2000).

Today Albert Sidney Johnston (1803- 1862) is one of the most overlooked generals of the Civil War, but in April 1862 he was widely considered the Confederacy's best general. After graduating from West Point, where he befriended classmates Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, Johnston had a distinguished military career that ensured he would play a principal role in the Civil War. The fact that he was friends with Davis didn't hurt either, and near the beginning of the war Johnston was given command of the Western Department, which basically comprised the entire Western theater at the time. The Confederates were served poorly in that theater by incompetent officers who Johnston and the South had been saddled with, and from the beginning of the Civil War the Confederates struggled to gain traction in the battlegrounds of Kentucky and Missouri. After critical Confederate setbacks at Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in early 1862, Johnston concentrated his forces in northern Georgia and prepared for a major offensive that culminated with the biggest battle of the war to that point, the Battle of Shiloh. On the morning of April 6, Johnston directed an all out attack on Grant's army around Shiloh Church, and though Grant's men had been encamped there, they had failed to create defensive fortifications or earthworks. They were also badly caught by surprise. With nearly 45,000 Confederates attacking, Johnston's army began to steadily push Grant's men back toward the river. As fate would have it, the Confederates may have been undone by friendly fire at Shiloh. Johnston advanced out ahead of his men on horseback while directing a charge near a peach orchard when he was hit in the lower leg by a bullet that historians now widely believe was fired by his own men. Nobody thought the wound was serious, including Johnston, who continued to aggressively lead his men and even sent his personal physician to treat wounded Union soldiers taken captive. But the bullet had clipped an artery, and shortly after being wounded Johnston began to feel faint in the saddle. With blood filling up his boot, Johnston unwittingly bled to death. The delay caused by his death, and the transfer of command to subordinate P.G.T. Beauregard, bought the Union defenders critical time on April 6, and the following day Grant's reinforced army struck back and pushed the Confederate army off the field.

Biography.

Before his death in 1870, Robert E. Lee penned a letter to Col. Charles Marshall in which he argued that we must cast our eyes backward in times of turmoil and change, concluding that “it is history that teaches us to hope.” Charles Pierce Roland, one of the nation’s most distinguished and respected historians, has done exactly that, devoting his career to examining the South’s tumultuous path in the years preceding and following the Civil War. History Teaches Us to Hope: Reflections on the Civil War and Southern History is an unprecedented compilation of works by the man the volume editor John David Smith calls a “dogged researcher, gifted stylist, and keen interpreter of historical questions.”Throughout his career, Roland has published groundbreaking books, including The Confederacy (1960), The Improbable Era: The South since World War II (1976), and An American Iliad: The Story of the Civil War (1991). In addition, he has garnered acclaim for two biographical studies of Civil War leaders: Albert Sidney Johnston (1964), a life of the top field general in the Confederate army, and Reflections on Lee (1995), a revisionist assessment of a great but frequently misunderstood general. The first section of History Teaches Us to Hope, “The Man, The Soldier, The Historian,” offers personal reflections by Roland and features his famous “GI Charlie” speech, “A Citizen Soldier Recalls World War II.” Civil War–related writings appear in the following two sections, which include Roland’s theories on the true causes of the war and four previously unpublished articles on Civil War leadership. The final section brings together Roland’s writings on the evolution of southern history and identity, outlining his views on the persistence of a distinct southern culture and his belief in its durability. History Teaches Us to Hope is essential reading for those who desire a complete understanding of the Civil War and southern history. It offers a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary historian.