When McDowell advanced against Beauregard at Bull Run, Johnston, who was at Winchester, hastened with his army to the scene of battle, and this reinforcement, which McDowell had endeavored vainly to prevent, won the day for the Confederates.  He remained in command at Richmond, opposing McClellan’s advance up the peninsula, but was badly wounded at the battle of Seven Pines, and was incapacitated for duty for several months, Lee succeeding him in command of the army.

Johnston was never again to gain any great victories, for he had in some way incurred the ill-will of Jefferson Davis, and was placed in one impossible position after another, sent to meet an enemy which always outnumbered him, and refused the assistance which he should have had.  The last of these tasks was that of stopping Sherman’s march to the sea, but Sherman had sixty thousand men to his seventeen thousand, and a battle was out of the question.

After Lee’s surrender, Davis fled south to Greensboro, where Johnston found him and advised that, since the war had been decided against them, it was their duty to end it without delay, as its further continuance could accomplish nothing and would be mere murder.  To this Davis reluctantly agreed, and Johnston thereupon sought Sherman and made terms of surrender for his army and Beauregard’s.  The terms which Sherman granted were rejected by Congress as too liberal, and another agreement was drawn up, similar to the one which had been signed between Grant and Lee.  It is worth remarking that the Union generals in the field were disposed to treat their fallen foes with greater charity and kindness than the politicians in Congress, who had never seen a battlefield, and who were concerned, not with succoring a needy brother, but with wringing every possible advantage from the situation.

To two other southern commanders we must give passing mention before turning from this period of our history.  First of these is James Longstreet, who had the reputation of being the hardest fighter in the Confederate service, whose men were devoted to him, and called him affectionately “Old Pete.”  The army always felt secure when “Old Pete” was with it; and, indeed, he did not seem to know how to retreat.  He held the Confederate right at Bull Run, and the left at Fredericksburg; he saved Jackson from defeat by Pope, at the second battle of Bull Run; he was on the right at Gettysburg, and tried to dissuade Lee from the disastrous charge of the third day which resulted in Confederate defeat; he held the left at Chickamauga, did brilliant service in the Wilderness, and was included in the surrender at Appomattox.  A sturdy and indomitable man, the Confederacy had good reason to be proud of him.