Manuscript copy of 'In Memoriam: Albert Sidney Johnstone' (page 1)
Book 1, Page 66 ·1862–1871
Transcription
A long sheet of lined paper closely written in cursive in brown ink, with verse centered between wide margins.
In Memoriam:
Behind this Stone is laid, For a Season,
Albert Sidney Johnstone,
A General in the Army of the Confederate States, Who fell at Shiloh Tennessee, On the 5th day of April, A. D. 1862; A Man tried in many high offices And critical enterprises, And found faithful in all.
His life was one long sacrifice of interest to conscience; And even that life, on a woful Sabbath, Did he yield as a holocaust to his country’s need. Not wholly understood was he while he lived; But in his death, his greatness stands confessed In a people’s tears.
Resolute, Moderate, clear of envy, Yet not wanting in that finer ambition which Makes men great and pure. In his honor — impregnable; In his Simplicity — Sublime; No country e’er had a truer Son — No cause a Nobler Champion; No people a Bolder defender — No principle a purer Victim,
Than
AI Notes
Page 1 of a handwritten copy of an inscription titled ‘In Memoriam’ to Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston (here spelled ‘Johnstone’), who fell at Shiloh on 6 April 1862. The text is laid out in centered verse on a long sheet of lined paper. The copyist writes ‘the 5th day of April’ — Johnston in fact died on the 6th. Continues onto pages 067–068; page 068 supplies the provenance — found pasted on a board at his New Orleans tomb, copied in Charleston, 25 February 1871.
Verse continues on the next scan.
The copyist’s “5th day of April” is a slip: Albert Sidney Johnston (1803–1862), the senior-most Confederate field commander killed in action, was shot in the leg at the Battle of Shiloh on Sunday, 6 April 1862, and bled to death within hours — the “woful Sabbath” of the verse. His death was widely mourned as a catastrophic loss for the Confederacy; Jefferson Davis later wrote that the fall of Johnston “was the turning point of our fate.”