Bust of General Joseph E. Johnston
Eugene Alonzo Poole

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Bust of General Joseph E. Johnston Bust of General Joseph E. Johnston
detail: signature
Eugene Alonzo Poole (1840-1912)
Bust of General Joseph E. Johnston
American: c. 1870-1885
Black-painted plaster
11 inches high; 6 inches deep
Incised Signature: E.A. Poole/Pat/Sculptor/Ballr
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Plaster bust, painted black, of General Joseph E. Johnston, who served with distinction in the U.S. and the Confederate Armies. This bust was one of a series of portraits of Civil War officers by Eugene Alonzo Poole, and is among the very few existing sculptures of Johnston.

Joseph Eggleston Johnston (1807-1891) attended West Point (Class of 1829) and served with distinction in the Mexican War. He had risen to the rank of quartermaster general in the U.S. Army when he resigned in 1861 to become a general in the Confederate army, where he soon assisted in the Confederate victory at Bull Run. He served as commander of armies in Northern Virginia, Tennessee and Georgia. However, bitter disagreements between Johnston and commander-in-chief Jefferson Davis led to his removal during General William Tecumseh Sherman's Siege of Atlanta. Lee returned him to command to fight against Sherman towards the end of the war, where Johnston presided over the South's last victory at Bentonville in April 1865. After the war, Johnston served two years as a U.S. congressman from Richmond and as the federal commissioner of railroads (1885-91) and wrote a highly regarded memoir about the Civil War that was highly critical of Davis. Although lacking in boldness in his offensive strategy, Johnston was an excellent defensive commander who was respected by his opponents -- he even served as a pallbearer at the funeral of his former adversary Sherman. In 1912, the United Daughters of the Confederacy erected a public statue of General Johnston in Dalton, Georgia, claimed to be the only such statue of him. Johnston was the subject of a biography by military historian Craig L. Symonds (Joseph E. Johnston. W.W. Norton: 1994).

Eugene Alonzo Poole was born in Poolesville, Maryland, and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and at Bonnât in Paris. He was first recognized for his sculptures of important Civil War officers. By 1887, Poole was in Pittsburgh concentrating on landscape painting, and he is best known for his Barbizon-style landscapes of southwestern Pennsylvania. He also painted portraits. He exhibited at important venues of the day including the Louvre, National Academy of Design and the Corcoran Galleries in Washington, D.C. His works are in the collections of the Butler Institute of American Art, Ohio and other American museums.

References:

"Eugene A. Poole." Gilliland's Fine Art. 2000. http://www.gillilandfineart.com/#Eugene%20A.%20Poole (6 May 2003).

"Joseph E. Johnston Statue." Roadside Georgia. 1994-2002. http://roadsidegeorgia.com/site/johnstonstatue.html (6 May 2003).

"Joseph Eggleston Johnston." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Ed. New York: Columbia University Press: 2003. Encyclopedia.com. http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/j/johnstonj1e1.asp (6 May 2003).