"Death of a Veteran Editor," December 25, 1867

["Death of a Veteran Editor," December 25, 1867, The Louisiana Democrat. (Alexandria, La.), 25 Dec. 1867, page 2. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. Link here. The author of this article clearly knew Johnston well -- there are only a few minor inaccuracies which are (mostly) corrected with bracketed corrections. I've added some paragraph breaks for easier reading. Rapides Parish is the parish referred to in the text. Eugene Rene Biossat (1819-1880) was editor of the paper at the time.]  

We are pained to learn of the death of Edward William Johnston, Esq., at St. Louis, Mo., on the 9th Inst.  Mr. Johnston was born in Cumberland [adjacent to Prince Edward] county, Virginia, in the year 1799, and was the son of Judge Peter Johnston, a distinguished jurist and member of the celebrated Legislature of 1798 which passed the famous Resolutions. Judge Johnston raised quite a large family of children, of whom the subject of the sketch was the oldest [he was fourth oldest]. Charles C. Johnston, while a promising member of Congress, was drowned in the Potamac in 1831 [1832]. Beverly Johnston is a leading lawyer in South-Western Virginia, and Peter Johnston represented Lee County in the Convention which passed the ordinance of secession Joseph E. Johnston is still more widely know[n] than either of his brothers, as the late commander of the Confederate forces in the South-West. Through his mother Mr. Johnston was a grand nephew of Patrick Henry.

At an early age Mr. Johnston became associated with the public press, a profession in which he was destined to achieve an enviable distinction. He was assistant editor of the New York Courier and Enquirer under James Watson Webb, before the rising of the Whig party. During Nullification times he edited a nullification paper [The Telescope] at Columbia, South Carolina, was a Calhoun man during his war with Jackson, but quitted him, as he said, "when he surrendered to Van Buren" and became an orthodox member of the Democratic party.  

Subsequently to his residence in South Carolina Mr. Johnston settled at Washington as a newspaper correspondent and acquired a wide reputation by his able and interesting letters on current political questions over the signiture [sic] of Il Segretario. For fifteen years he was the literary editor of the National Intelligencer, and wrote those able literary criticisms which added so much to the interest of that venerable paper. 

In 1850 he became editor of the Richmond Whig, but having become involved in a political quarrel and a duel with John M. Daniel, he left the paper in a short time and returned to Washington. 

Soon after the establishment of the New York Times he wrote for it a series of sketches on "Great Talkers;" which were very generally read and universally admired. We remember his giving the palm to his friend, the gifted Warren R. Davis, of South Carolina, as being the best talker he had ever met. 

In 1854, during the Know Nothing excitement, he was editor of the New Orleans Crescent, then published by Joseph H. Maddox, Esq., of this parish. In 1857 he removed to St. Louis, Mo., and was for a short time the literary editor of the St. Louis Leader, the organ of the Democracy in Missouri, then under the editorial management of Wm. A. Seay, now of this parish. He remained in St. Louis during the war, and we understand suffered no little oppression on account of his known Southern sentiments.

Mr. Johnston, when in the prime of his life, had few superiors in those attainments which are the most useful to a politician, and few excelled him as a ready paragraphist and political conversationalist. He wielded a forcible and vigorous pen. 

A few years since, when the Whig Review was at its Zenith, Mr. Bernard requested Mr. Webster to write an article on "Progress" which shoulld take a Conservative view and have interwoven with it some of the fundamental principles of the Whig party. Mr. Webster declined and recommended Mr. Johnston, who placed the article in the printer's hands within twenty four hours.

When he joined the staff of the St. Louis Leader, Prentice (of whose paper he was for many years a correspondent) said: "though a little too fond of archaisms for our modern style, he is a writer of extra ordinary vigor, point and elegance, and possesses a fund of information surpassed by no man with whom we have ever been acquainted." Of late years however, Mr. Johnston, under the accumulated ills of age, has lost much of his intellectual vigor and energy.