Joseph Eggleston Johnston to John Preston Johnston, November 18, 1839

[Joseph Eggleston Johnston at Botetourt Springs, Virginia, to John Preston Johnstone (Johnston) at West Point, New York, November 18, 1839. Joseph E. Johnston Papers, Special Collections Research Center, Swem Library, College of William and Mary, Box I, folder 2. See also Box 26, Folder 11, Robert Morton Hughes Papers, Special Collections and University Archives, Patricia W. and J. Douglas Perry Library, Old Dominion University Libraries, Norfolk, VA 23529. This is my rough transcription. Extra paragraph breaks added for easier reading.]

[Arrived a week past. Lizzie still in Burke’s Garden, unfortunately. Hopes Bev will get her into school. Will remain here until Christmas.]

10^th proximo & then return to be employed a month or two in Washington.

Edward is now quite settled here, & cultivating his farm in a manner far exceeding my expectations. He is really turning it to some account. There are plenty of partridges here to amuse me, & my little horse is beyond compare. I am going to take him to my sweet Heart. I flatter myself she’ll never resist the united attractions of myself & Tigertail – so Edward had christened him.

I saw Mr. Bliss on the wharf at W. P. after parting with you. He spoke of you in terms more complimentary to your capacity than to your habits of application. I had suspicions of the sort before, Pres. For yours is very much the style and manner of a young gentleman disposed to take the world easy. Let me remind you, however, that you will enjoy that disposition most by a little exertion now. [T]he place you may give yourself in your class this year, if good, may be kept with little trouble, while to improve your standing, will require both labour & good fortune. I am anxious that you should graduate high enough to be assigned to the Top’l Corps.

I hope, indeed I am sure that you will not, my dear Pres, mistake the spirit & temper in which I now write. I assure you that it’s no ill natured disposition to censure, no assumption of authority, but simply the language of interest of of one who speaks to you as to the friend for whom he is most anxious, of one who looks upon you with much pride, & hopes to fee still more in you, & who wishes too, to keep up the most friendly, free & brotherly intercourse with you.

                                              Most aff’y

                                               J.E. Johnston

[Joseph Eggleston Johnston (1807-1891) was thirty-two at the time, a first lieutenant (brevet captain) in the US Corps of Topographical Engineers.

Pres = John Preston Johnston/aka Johnstone (1824-1847), fifteen-year-old plebe cadet at the US Military Academy (Class of 1843).

Edward William Johnston (1799-1867), forty years old, was attempting to run a school at Botetourt Springs (now the site of Hollins University) on the property formerly owned by his uncle Charles Johnston (1769-1833).
Lizzie = Eliza Mary Johnston (1825-1909)

Mr. Bliss = William Wallace Smith Bliss (1815-1853), for whom Fort Bliss is named.

Tigertail = Named after Seminole War leader Thlocklo Tustenuggee, aka Tiger Tail.]

[Many thanks to Sue Davis, William Myers, Mary Davy and Sally Young for their ongoing research collaboration.]