John Warfield Johnston (September 9, 1818February 27, 1889) was an American lawyer and politician from Abingdon, Virginia. He served in the Virginia State Senate, and represented Virginia in the United States Senate when the state was readmitted after the American Civil War. He was a United States Senator for 13 years. In national politics, he was a Democrat.
Johnston had been ineligible to serve in Congress because of the Fourteenth Amendment, which forbade anyone who had sworn allegiance to the United States and subsequently sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War from holding public office. However, his restrictions were removed at the suggestion of the Freedmen's Bureau when he aided a sick and dying former slave after the War. He was the first person who had sided with the Confederacy to serve in the United States Senate.
Several issues marked Johnston's senatorial career. He was caught in the middle during the debate over the Arlington Memorial. The initial proposal to relocate the dead was distasteful to Johnston, yet the ensuing debate caused him to want to defend the memory of Robert E. Lee; the need to stay quiet for the sake of the Democratic Party, however, proved decisive. Johnston was an outspoken opponent of the Texas-Pacific Bill, a sectional struggle for control of railroads in the South, which figured in the Compromise of 1877. He was also an outspoken Funder during Virginia's heated debate as to how much of its pre-War debt the state ought to have been obliged to pay back. The controversy culminated in the formation of the Readjuster Party and the appointment of William Mahone as its leader; this marked the end of Johnston's career in the Senate.
Family and early life
Johnston was born in his paternal grandfather's house, "Panicello", near Abingdon, Virginia. He was the only child of Dr. John Warfield Johnston and Louisa Smith Bowen. His grandfather was Judge Peter Johnston, who had fought under Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee during the Revolutionary War, and his great-grandmother was the sister of Patrick Henry. His mother was the sister of Rees T. Bowen, a Virginia politician, and his paternal uncles included Charles Clement Johnston and General Joseph Eggleston Johnston. His first cousin was U. S. Congressman Henry Bowen. Johnston's ancestry was Scottish, English, Welsh, and Scots-Irish.
Johnston attended Abingdon Academy, South Carolina College at Columbia, and the law department of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville. He was admitted to the bar in 1839 and commenced practice in Tazewell, Virginia.
On October 12, 1841, he married Nicketti Buchanan Floyd, the daughter of Governor John Floyd and Letitia Preston, and the sister of Governor John Buchanan Floyd. His wife was Catholic, having converted when young; Johnston converted after the marriage.
In 1859, he moved his family to Abingdon, Virginia, and lived at first on East Main Street. An Abingdon resident noted that "it was a delightful home to visit and the young men enjoyed the cordial welcome that they received from the old and the young." While there, the family started construction of a new home called "Eggleston", three miles (5 km) east of town; the family's affectionate name for it was "Castle Dusty". They moved in sometime after August 1860.
Johnston and Nicketti Buchanan Floyd had twelve children, one of whom was Dr. George Ben Johnston, prominent physician in Richmond who is credited with the first antiseptic operation performed in Virginia. Both the Johnston Memorial Hospital in Abingdon and the Johnston-Willis Hospital in Richmond are named after him.
Early career
Johnston served as commonwealth attorney for Tazewell County between 1844 and 1846. In 1846, he was elected to serve the remainder of the 1846–1847 term in the Virginia Senate, representing Tazewell, Wythe, Grayson, Smyth, Carroll, and Pulaski counties. He was re-elected for the 1847–1848 session.
During the Civil War, he held the position of Confederate States receiver, and was also elected as a councilman for the town of Abingdon in 1861. Not much is known of his activities during the war, but he did send a letter to Brigadier-General John Echols that the Order of Heroes of America, was "growing fearfully" in southwest Virginia. This secret order was composed of Union sympathizers. This information was used in conjunction with other reports to request a suspension of habeas corpus so that the military could make arrests.