The question printed on the dust jacket repeats the one asked by many readers: “Who the H#** was Old Alleghany?” More importantly, why is a book the size of an encyclopedia dedicated to him?

Well, Ed Johnson, affectionately known as “Old Alleghany,” was a Confederate general, and a good one at that. Gettysburg historian Harry Pfanz called him “a character in an army that had more than its full share of eccentric general officers.” Stonewall Jackson biographer Bud Robertson said that Johnson “boasted a strong personality and loud voice that commanded attention where physical good looks did not.”

But despite this praise, Ed Johnson has been lost to history, figuratively and physically. Johnson died during Reconstruction; he never married, left no heirs, and no personal papers. There was no one to tell his story or preserve his memory. Even his grave in Richmond’s famed Hollywood Cemetery, has been lost. No one knows where he was actually buried. But enough does remain in letters, military records and battle reports to reconstruct much of his physical passing and, in the end, reveal a gentleman and gifted soldier.

Homely, carelessly dressed, and in the habit of carrying a walking stick into battle instead of a sword, Johnson seemed out of place in the military. Yet he was dedicated to cause and country. Raised in Virginia with a lineage tracing back to Thomas Jefferson, Johnson attended West Point, requiring five years to pass its rigorous academic requirements.

Upon graduation he was stationed in Florida where he was indoctrinated into the privations of Florida’s swamps, wastelands and hostile Indians. Later, Johnson won brevet promotions for gallantry in Mexico before facing off against Indians once more in the West.

With the outbreak of civil war, Johnson, like many West Pointers, resigned his commission and was assigned to Stonewall Jackson’s command. Injured at the beginning of Jackson’s Valley Campaign, Johnson missed out on the fame and rapid promotion afforded those participants.

Johnson returned a year later in time for the battle of Gettysburg where he was assigned to General Ewell’s Division and fought in the bloody stalemate at Culp’s Hill. Later his division fought in the Wilderness where Johnson was captured a week later in Spotsylvania’s Mule Shoe. After imprisonment and parole from Fort Delaware, Johnson again returned to the fight where he was subsequently captured in Nashville and re-imprisoned in Boston.

After reading of Johnson’s loss to history, one would expect little information on which to base a book, let alone a massive biography whose size is often reserved for only the most senior of officers. But Gregg S. Clemmer has done it. Clemmer amassed an enormous amount of research on Johnson from the papers of those who knew him. He has filled in many of the gaps with overall assessments and stories of the times.

Clemmer’s description of West Point and Florida are very good and make the readers feel as if they are really there. We see how tedious and boring life on the Plains is and how it became easy to be disinterested in the military and enamored with life anywhere else. The research is sound and the footnotes are appropriate and not too in-depth. While additional pictures or maps would have been helpful, the lack of them was not detrimental to the overall presentation.

Old Alleghany suffers from two problems. First, it seems that Clemmer may have written too much for the average reader. Old Alleghany is a massive work whose interest ebbs and flows with Johnson’s life in the service. Few will have sufficient interest in Ed Johnson to sustain them though the boring years on the Plains.

Where the records are thin, Clemmer departs from Johnson, often for several pages, and recounts daily military life or narrates a story of the overall political situation. While this may be necessary to place Johnson in the proper context, it also leads the reader from the main reason they purchased this book. This is certainly not the author’s fault. It is merely the nature of a biography that has little first-person material to fall back on.

A second problem stems from the fact that little first-person information remains. We do not have Johnson’s personal papers or letters after the war and are left to guess as to many of his thoughts. We can only speculate why he made the troops movements that he did. As such, we run the risk of incorrectly analyzing Johnson and skewing history. But alas, there is no other way. And if guessing is required, at least it was done by Clemmer who knows Johnson best.

But, if you can hang on and read this massive biography you will be rewarded. This is an excellent work of scholarship. Clemmer has shown that thorough research produces a wealth of information. Old Alleghany’s body may have been lost, but his service to the South will at least be remembered.

Editor’s Note: This letter was written before, but received after, publication of the review in the December issue.

I've just been forwarded John Benson's review of Old Alleghany. All in all, he pens a respectable case for the book, but I would like to note a few discrepancies for the record.

While Mr. Benson credits our research and footnotes, he states that "additional pictures or maps would have been helpful..." We respectfully note that the book includes 15 maps and 49 halftones covering all aspects of Ed Johnson's varied life and military career.

Mr. Benson mentions that at the outbreak of civil war, Johnson "was assigned to Stonewall Jackson's command." I fear you will get cards and letters on this one!

In Spring 1862, Johnson commanded the much diminished Army of the Northwest in the mountains west of Staunton. Jackson commanded the Army of the Valley in the lower Shenandoah Valley. Only in early May 1862, did Jackson actually "hook up" with Johnson in Staunton for the march on McDowell. And only when Johnson was subsequently wounded at McDowell, did Jackson formally incorporate Old Alleghany's forces into his own.

We appreciate Mr. Benson's warning to readers of the book's "massive" size. But we would point out that this biography is a complete bio....not the usual "military biography" wherein the author gives us 25 pages on the subject's first 25 years of life, then pounds through 400 pages of war between the states, and concludes (if the subject survived) with 15 more pages on the soldier's last 15 years of life. Thus Ed Johnson's bio is not just another Confederate biography, but instead the chronicle of an American military officer who served 23 years wearing the blue and four wearing the gray.

Finally, Mr. Benson tasks us for lack of Johnson primary sources. Aside from Old Alleghany's voluminous records in the National Archives, we did indeed discover two significant caches of Ed Johnson letters, one in a public institution, the other in private hands. Virtually devoid of military information, they are personal letters Johnson wrote while a prisoner of war, and as one might suspect of Mary Chesnut's inept parlor romancer, all addressed to women half his age.

Again, I thank Mr. Benson for his review, only pointing out these several corrections.

Gregg Clemmer
Darnestown, Md.

John S. Benson
John S. Benson is a student at the Civil War Institute, and appears in the Civil War play "A House Divided." He is an Assistant District Attorney in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

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