Description
Wonderful carte view of Brigadier General Richard Johnson of Kentucky. Johnson was at the Cavalry School at Carlisle Barracks at the outbreak of the Civil War. He would be appointed lieutenant colonel of the 3rd Kentucky Cavalry and was soon after promoted to brigadier general of the United States Volunteers. As a cavalry commander he took part in the western campaigns of 1861 and 1862. On August 21, 1862, he was defeated and captured by Confederate Colonel John Hunt Morgan, whom he had been sent to drive out of Tennessee. Exchanged in December 1862, Johnson took command of a division in the Army of the Cumberland and led his division at the Battle of Stones River. He continued in division command during the middle Tennessee campaign of 1863. At the Chickamauga, on the second day of the battle, Johnston’s division fell in with Maj. Gen. George Henry Thomas on the Union left. During the Battle of Chattanooga, Johnson’s division was one of the several that charged up Missionary Ridge. He remained in division command attached to the XIV Corps, of the Army of the Cumberland during the Atlanta Campaign of 1864. Johnson’s division performed creditably at all of the major engagements of the campaign until he was severely wounded during the Battle of New Hope Church on May 28, 1864. Johnson briefly served as Chief of Cavalry for the Military Division of the Mississippi before stepping down to command a division in General James H. Wilson’s cavalry corps – where he fought at the Battle of Nashville. In total, Johnson received five brevet promotions for his battlefield performance, culminating with a major general’s brevet in the Regular Army. He was finally mustered out of the volunteer service on January 15, 1866. This bust portrait of the general bears a very desirable back mark by famed Nashville photographer C.C. Giers & Co. A cancelled tax stamp is also present on the reverse. Very nice carte.
