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[56] which caused General Johnston's death. My own opinion, founded upon the statements of those who were near him, and upon my long acquaintance with him and close observation of him under trying circumstances, is that his iron nerve and extraordinary concentration of mind made him regardless of his wound, in the fixed purpose to dislodge the enemy from his last position, and while thus struggling to complete the victory within his grasp, he unheedingly allowed his life blood to flow away. It often happens that men do not properly value their richest gifts until taken away. Those who had erroneously and unjustly censured Johnston, convicted of their error by the grandeur of his revealed character, joined in the general lamentation over his loss, and malignity even was silenced by the devoted manner of his death. My estimation of him was based on long and intimate acquaintance; beginning in our youth, it had grown with our growth without check or variation, and, when he first arrived in Richmond, was expressed to some friends yet living, in the wish that I had the power, by resigning, to transfer to him the presidency of the Confederate States.
1881.
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