to
the American colonies, and of these perhaps the most prominent were
those descended from John Johnston of Stapleton, Dumfriesshire, an
officer in a Scottish regiment in the French service. His second son,
Gabriel, became Governor of North Carolina. In the house of the
Governor's brother, Gilbert, it is stated that General Marion signed
the commission for the celebrated band known as "Marion's Men." Among
the more prominent descendants of Gilbert Johnston are: (1) James, who
became a Colonel on the staff of General Rutherford during the
Revolution and served in several engagements; (2) William, M.D., who
married a daughter of General Peter Forney, and died in 1855. This
William had five sons: (1) James, a Captain in the Confederate Army;
(2) Robert, a Brigadier-General; (3) William, a Colonel; (4) Joseph
Forney, born in 1843, Captain in the Confederate Army, Governor of
Alabama from 1896 to 1900, and United States Senator for Alabama in
1907; (5) Bartlett, an officer in the Confederate Navy. Samuel
Johnston, a nephew of Gilbert's, was the Naval Officer of North
Carolina in 1775, Treasurer during the Revolution, and Governor of
North Carolina from 1787 to 1789, President of the Convention that
finally adopted the State Constitution, and first Senator elected by
his state in the United States Congress in 1789. His son, James, was
the largest planter in the United States on his death in 1865.
Gilbert's brother Robert, was an attorney and civil engineer. His son,
Peter, served as Lieutenant in the legion which Colonel Henry Lee
recruited in Virginia, and after the war became Judge of the
South-Western Circuit in Virginia, and Speaker of the Virginia House
of Delegates. He married Mary Wood, a niece of Patrick Henry. Their
eighth son, Joseph Eccleston Johnston, born in 1807, graduated from
West Point in 1829, served in the Federal Army in all its campaigns,
up to the time of the Civil War. Although holding the rank of
Lieutenant-Colonel and Quarter-Master-General, he resigned and joined
the Confederate Army, and rendered brilliant service in its ranks.
Another eminent individual of this name was General Albert Sydney
Johnston, the son of a physician, John Johnston, the descendant of a
Scottish family long settled in Connecticut. Christopher Johnston
(1822-1891), a descendant of the Poldean branch of the Annandale
Johnstons, was professor of surgery in the University of Maryland. His
son, also named Christopher (d. 1914), g