GENERAL JOSEPH EGGLESTON JOHNSTON.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Some account of "the first families" of Virginia.-Ancestry of Joseph Eggleston Johnston.-Peter Johnston in the Revolutionary War, and in the State councils of Virginia.-Early life of Joseph E. Johnston.-Military tastes of the boy.Services of Lieut. Johnston in the Florida War.-An incident of desperate courage.—Services in the Mexican War.-Bon Mot of Gen. Scott.-Johnston appointed Quartermaster-General.

THE people of Eastern Virginia have a creditable practice of tracing family lineages to their earliest sources. In democratic communities, where inherited rank is disallowed, and distinctions of blood are decried, the practice may be somewhat invidious; but yet there is no sentiment more natural, more laudable, or more conducive to the welfare of the State, than pride of family founded upon merit continuing, or honourable public services repeated, through successive generations. The Virginia habit is the more praiseworthy, innocent, and useful, inasmuch as the claim so often heard, of descent from the "first families," far from being generally a pretension to superiour rank and blood, is nothing more than a commendable claim of regular and honest descent from early settlers in the colony. By "first" families is meant nothing more pretentious or aristocratic than families that came to Virginia in periods of history more or less early. Not many families, however, now claiming this attribute of first in order of time, can be traced further back than a few generations beyond the colonial war of independence.

Among the first families of Virginia, in this sense of time, are those of Lee and Johnston; names which were as intimately identified in the Revolution which succeeded in 1783, as they have

been in that which failed in 1865. If the Virginia habit of tracing lineages be pardonable, the reader will excuse the indulgence of it in the instance of JOSEPH EGGLESTON JOHNSTON; for both his paternal and maternal ancestry were prominently known in the early history of the State.

Peter Johnston, the first of his family in America, was a native of Edinburgh. He belonged to the clan of Johnstons of Annandale, the famous border chieftains, celebrated in Scottish song and legend. Emigrating to the colony of Virginia when about sixteen years of age, he became a merchant, and settled at a place on James River known as Osborne's, at that time the chief "Tobacco Inspection " in the colony. He remained single until his fifty-first year, and then married a widow, Mrs. Martha Rogers, daughter of Mr. John Butler, a merchant of Prince George County, who lived on the south side of the Appomatox, a mile below Petersburg. Peter Johnston and his wife lived four years at Osborne's, and then (in 1765) removed to the County of Prince Edward, and settled on a farm, which they called Cherry Grove, but which was afterwards called Longwood, a mile from Farmville. This place was the family residence until 1811. They prospered, acquired a handsome property, and gained high standing. Mr. Johnston, always a strong advocate for learning, was one (the chief) of the founders of Hampden Sidney College. He gave his four sons a liberal education-first, under the care of tutors, whom he imported expressly from Scotland, and afterwards at Hampden Sidney. He was a High Churchman, a firm royalist, and a great stickler for family dignity and paternal authority. He gave most of his property to the eldest son.

On Thursday the 6th of January, 1763, the first son of Peter and Martha Johnston was born, at Osborne's on James River, and was baptized by his father's name. The son was two years of age at the removal of the family to Prince Edward.

Imbibing at a very early period of the Revolutionary War an enthusiastic attachment to the cause of liberty, and sensible that the opinions of his father, whose political creed sanctioned the pretensions of Britain, would militate against his ardent ambition to serve the patriot cause, Peter Johnston the younger, at the age of sixteen, eloped from his college, and joined as a volunteer the Legion of Lieut.-Col. Henry Lee, then passing through the country. His

companion in this truancy was Clement Carrington of Charlotte County. The Legion was composed of three companies of horse and three of foot. It was then on its march from the army of Washington in the north, to take part with Greene in the southern campaigns. Col. Lee had made so favourable an impression on Gen. Washington, as to have been permitted to organize and officer his Legion with men specially known for their courage and efficiency. No command of approximate numbers was ever able to withstand it. Peter Johnston's eagerness to acquire military knowledge, and unceasing efforts at distinction, very speedily attracted attention, and obtained for him the commission of ensign, to which he aspired; while the whole tenor of his conduct evinced that it could not have been more judiciously bestowed. He was brave, enterprising, and where duty called, exemplary in its performance. He bore himself honourably and bravely at Guilford, Eutaw, and Ninety-six, and retained to the day of his death a predilection for his early profession, which not all his subsequent success in a profession of a very different character could entirely obliterate. The captain of his company was Joseph Eggleston of Amelia.

To the end of the war he still acquired an increase of reputation, and so completely gained the favour of the parent whom he had offended, as to be received on his return to the domestic circle of his family, not only with affection but with pride. He chose the profession of law, and soon won an enviable prominence at the bar.

After the war, the names of Lee and Johnston took a temporary divergence. Henry Lee became a strong federalist and vehement assailant of Jefferson, the founder of the opposite school of politics; while we find Peter Johnston a prominent member of the republican party. Both of these names appear in the report of the celebrated debates of the Virginia General Assembly of 1799, on the resolutions which had been adopted in 1798 on the relations of the States to the Union; and appear on opposite sides of the question. Peter Johnston, a delegate from Prince Edward, had been one of the committee who had reported these celebrated resolutions at the session preceding the report of Madison, and the debates of 1799 upon the subject. Peter Johnston was subsequently for many years a Judge of the General Court of Virginia, and moved in 1811 to the Abingdon district, in Southwest Virginia to which he had been assigned.