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Student Life at Western Military Institute William Preston Johnstons

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Student Life at Western Military Institute William Preston Johnstons STUDENT LIFE AT WESTERN MILITARY INSTITUTE: WILLIAM PRESTON JOHNSTON'S JOURNAL, 1847-1848 T•sc,amEu BY ABTHUa M•mv•r SHAW Centenary College of Louisiana, Skreveport Author of william Preston lohnston (1948) INTRODUCTION. William Preston Johnston, the oldest son of Albert Sidney Johnston and his wife, Henrietta Preston, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 5, 1831. His mother died when he was less than five years old; and a year later his father left Kentucky for Texas, leaving his son and a four-year-old daughter, Henrietta Preston, in the care of some of their maternal relatives. The boy resided for several years in the home of his mother's youngest sister, Mrs. Josephine Rogers; and after her death in November, 1842, his further rearing was entrusted to his uncle, William Preston.' As a soldier in Texas, Albert Sidney Johnston rendered valuable service to the young republic, rose to the rank of brigadier general, and served as Secretary of War under Presi- dent Mirabeau B. Lamar.* During a visit to Kentucky in October, 1843, General Johnston married Eliza Grifl•n, a cousin of his first wife, took his bride to Texas, and settled on a plan- tation which he had purchased in Brazoria County near Gal-' veston. 3 From this union six children were born;" but his affee- tion for his oldest children, from whom he was separated most of the time, remained undiminished. William was deeply de- voted to his father, and one of the brightest spots in his boy- hood was a visit he made early in 1847 to China Grove, his father's plantation, which was really a large undeveloped tract of land. So strongly was the son impressed by the Texas coun- try on this and later visits that in early manhood he made plans to immigrate there with" his family; but an alteration in his father's circumstances changed his purpose. William received his earlier education in the schools of Louisville, and later he attended an academy operated by S. V. Womack in Shelbyville, Kentucky, where one of his classmates 1944] William Preston ]ohnston, 1847-1848 79 was his cousin and lifelong friend, Josiah Stoddard Johnston. During the session of 1846 he was a student in Centre College at Danville, Kentucky; and in the fall of 1847 he went to Georgetown, Kentucky, and entered the Western Military In- stitute, which was beginning its first session. It was during his stay at this school that he kept the ,Diary here presented. His education suffered some interruption, but in the spring of 1851 he entered Yale College and received his Bachelor of Arts degree from that institution in the summer of 1852. At Yale he made a good scholastic record and won two prizes for literary composition. In the following ),ear he received his diploma ha law from the Uniyersity of Louisville. While at Yale College young Johnston became attached to Miss Rosa Duncan, whose widowed mother had moved with her family from Louisiana to New Haven in order to be near relatives there. Upon the completion of his law course John- ston malTied Miss Duncan and brought her and her mother's family to Louisville, where he began the practice of law, draw- ing his chief income at first from the sale of pieces of Louis- ville property which he had inherited from his mother. Form- ing a partnership with E. S. Worthington, he practised his pro- fession in Louisville-with the exception of one year in New York City-until the outbreak of the Civil War. Johnston's sympathies were strongly on the side of the Southern States, and he devoted his energies to assisting their cause in Kentucky. With Captain Philip Lee, James W. Hewill (who with the rank of colonel fell at Chickamauga), and Colonel R. A. Johnson he recruited a number of companies for the Confederate service; and in the winter of 1861-186'2 he served with the Army of Northern Virginia as a field officer in command of Kentucky troops. Contracting a serious illness which rendered him unfit for such service, he was given a com- mission as aide-de-camp, with the rank of colonel of cavalry. In the meantime his father was killed in the Battle of Shiloh, April 6, 1862. As aide-de-camp Colonel William Preston Johnston served on the staff of his father's former college mate and devoted friend, President Jefferson Davis. He was a trusted friend and adviser of the President throughout the war, living part of the time in the Davis home. After the collapse of the Confederate government he was captured with his chief and 80 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 18 spent several months in solitary confinement at Fort Delaware. The strong friendship between Davis and his aide continued until the death of the former in December, 1889. Following his release from prison and a voluntary exile of several months in Montreal, Canada, Johnston returned to Louisville, and shortly thereafter moved with his family to Lexington, Virginia, where he joined the faculty of Washing- ton College, of which General Robert E. Lee was then presi- dent. Here he enjoyed the close friendship of General Lee, suffered with the fluctuating fortunes of the college, reared his family of five daughters and one son to full or near adulthood, and wrote his best work, The Life of General Albert Sidney 1ohnston (1878) a labor of love and duty to which he devoted six years. In the fall of 1880, he assumed the difficult position of presi- dent of the Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge, an in..- stitution which had suffered many ills in the years following the war. Less than three years later he became tile first presi- dent of Tulane University in New Orleans. He organized the work of the school in an effective way, wrote and lectured in behalf of educational and cultural development in the im- poverished South, and published a number of articles and bool•s. Upon his death, July 16, 1899, tributes from many parts of the country praised him as an eminent soldier, orator, author, and educator. His resting place among his kinsmen in the Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville is marked by a tall marble shaft, the base of which bears the following inscription: "The heir of a great name, he added to his inheritance as a soldier, patriot, and founder of a great University.'" The Western Military Institute, which Johnston entered in November, 1847, survived for only fifteen years, but it rendered important service during its brief existence. More than a thousand of its trained cadets went into the Confederate Army. Its founder and president, Colonel Thornton F. Johnson, was a graduate of West Point, which, with the Virginia Military Institute, served as a model for the organization of the new school. Strong emphasis was placed on mathematics, the discipline of the students was rigid, and the uniform of the school conformed rather closely to that of the United States Army. The course of study included mathematics, Greek, 1944] William Preston ]ohnston, 1847-1848 81 Latin, French, history, chemistry, elementary philosophy, and Spanish.' In the middle of the first session, James G. Blaine began his three-years service as a member of the faculty; and Bushrod R. Johnston, who was afterward one of Albert Sidney Johnston's generals throughout the campaign which culminated in the Battle of Shiloh, was added to the faculty in the second year.° ' While a student at the Institute during the session of 1847- 1848 young Johnston kept a journal in which he recorded his experiences, thoughts, and feelings.' The document is an in- teresting and intimate revelation of the character of the young man, who was less than seventeen years old when he began the journal; and it is interesting also for the pictures which it presents of college life in the Institute. His narrative at time glows with emotional power, and at all 'times it rings with sincerity. Beginning with November 6, 1847, the diary con- tinues throughout the school session and into the summer which followed. In the middle of July, 1848, the youth abandoned the journal method of recounting his experiences, but he con- tinued to narrate some of the occurrences and emotional reactions associated with himself during several following months. Johnston must have stood high in the esteem of his fellow- students at the Institute, for years afterward Judge Charles E. Fenner of New Orleans said of him: "My acquaintance with Colonel Johnston began, when as a boy of fourteen, I became a student at the Western Military Instittite at Georgetown, Kentucky, where Colonel Johnston was then just completing his course. He was then a splendid, beautiful, and high-spirited youth, who was worshipped by his comrades, and especially by the younger students, as a veritable hero of romance. TM EXTRACTS FROM MY JOURNAL9 1847. NOVEMBEn 6. I have this day commenced a journal of my life, in hopes that by recording good and bad alike, I may be encouraged to persevere in what I deem correct, and shun what I consider wrong. Nerved by this desire, I hope to merit the notice of the good; and this day I note down a resolution to pursue my studies ardently. 82 The Filson Club History Quarterly [Vol. 18 On Nov. 1st nay uncle, William Preston, Lt. Col. of the 4th Regt. Ky. Volunteers, left for Mexico. '° Same day I started for Lexington with his family. Arrived there on the 2nd. On the 5th, I came to Georgetown, and to-day, I entered the Western Military Institute.
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