People of the Civil War · Confederacy
Bushrod R. Johnson
1817–1880
Background
West Point graduate and military educator who became a Confederate general.
Education and early service
Johnson was born in Ohio to a Quaker family and graduated from West Point in 1840. He served in the Seminole and Mexican–American wars, resigning from the army in 1847 after involvement in a scheme to sell government goods.
Teaching and the Civil War
He taught at the Western Military Institute and the University of Nashville before joining Confederate service. His wartime career included Fort Donelson, Shiloh, Chickamauga, and Petersburg. He became a major general in 1864 and was paroled at Appomattox in 1865.
Later life
Johnson returned to education after the war, serving as a professor and co-chancellor at the University of Nashville. He retired to Illinois in 1875 and died there in 1880.