Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/446

Rh destructive fire of eighteen guns, and took position as rear-guard across the pike. At Franklin a portion of his brigade was sacrificed in covering the retreat of General Gibson across the Harpeth river, and on the south side the brigade fought during the day as rear-guard under his command and that of Col. Bush Jones. Early in 1865 he and his brigade were sent to Mobile, and during the early part of the siege of Spanish Fort, Holtzclaw's and Ector's brigades relieved Thomas' Alabama reserves in the trenches. During the valorous defense of that post he commanded the left wing of the little army, Colonel Jones commanding his brigade, and was warmly commended for his services by General Gibson. Retreating to Meridian, after the fall of Mobile, he was paroled, with the army of Gen. Richard Taylor, in May, 1865. Returning then to Montgomery, he again took up the practice of law. In 1868 he was a delegate to the Democratic convention that nominated Seymour and Blair, was a district presidential elector in 1876, and elector for the State at large in 1888. In February, 1893, he was appointed by Governor Jones a member of the State railroad commission to succeed Gen. Levi W. Lawler, deceased. His appointment gave universal satisfaction. His useful career as a citizen was cut short by death on July 19, 1893.

Brigadier-General George Doherty Johnston was born in 1832, at Hillsboro, N. C. His father was a merchant of that town and his mother was a Miss Bond, granddaughter of Maj. George Doherty, a colonial officer in 1776. His parents moved to Alabama and settled at Greensboro in 1833. That same year his father died and his mother moved to Marion, where he was reared, and educated at Howard college. He studied law and, being admitted to the bar at Lebanon, Tenn., opened an office at Marion in 1855. The following year he was mayor, and in 1857 he represented the county in the legislature. At the opening of the war he was a lieutenant in the