Josiah Stoddard Johnston, journalist and historian, was born at New Orleans, February 10, 1833. He is the nephew of the celebrated Confederate cavalry leader, General Albert Sidney Johnston. Left an orphan when but five years old, he was reared by relatives in Kentucky. He was graduated from Yale in 1853; and the following year he was married to Miss Elizabeth W. Johnson, daughter of George W. Johnson, Confederate governor of Kentucky. Johnston was a cotton planter in Arkansas from 1855 to 1859, and a Kentucky farmer until the Civil War began. He served throughout the war upon the staffs of Generals Bragg, Buckner, and Breckinridge. Colonel Johnston was editor of the old Frankfort Yeoman for more than twenty years; and from 1903 to 1908 he was associate editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal. In 1871 Colonel Johnston was Adjutant-General of Kentucky; and Secretary of State from 1875 to 1879. He has been vice-president of the Filson Club of Louisville since 1893; and he is now consulting geologist of the Kentucky Geological Survey. Colonel Johnston's knowledge of plants and mammals is very extensive and most surprising in a man of literary tastes. His tube-roses and flower gardens is one of the traditions of the old town of Frankfort. Colonel Johnston has published The Memorial History of Louisville, Kentucky (Chicago, 1896, two vols.); The First Explorations of Kentucky (Louisville, 1898); and The Confederate History of Kentucky. Colonel Johnston is one of the finest men in Kentucky to-day, dignified, cultured, and deeply learned in the history of Kentucky and the West.
Bibliography. Memorial History of Louisville (Chicago, 1896); Library of Southern Literature (Atlanta, 1909, v. vi).
"CAPTAIN MOLL"[18]
[From First Explorations of Kentucky (Louisville, Kentucky, 1898)]
The Revolutionary War was drawing to a close, involving Virginia in its last throes in the devastation of an invading army. The whole eastern portion was overrun by the British forces under Arnold and Tarleton, the capital taken, and much public and private property destroyed everywhere. Charlottesville, to which the legislature had adjourned, Monticello, and Castle Hill were raided by Tarleton's dragoons, and the legislature, Mr. Jefferson, and Doctor Walker barely escaped capture. An interesting incident of the raid is recorded well illustrating the spirit which actuated the American women of that period. Not far distant from Charlottesville, on an estate known as "The Farm," resided Nicholas Lewis, the uncle and guardian of Meriwether Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific. His wife was Mary Walker, the eldest daughter of Doctor Walker. Her husband was absent in the army when Tarleton with his raiders swooped down on her home and proceeded to appropriate forage and every thing eatable and portable. She received the British cavalryman with spirit and dignity, and upbraided him sharply for his war on defenseless women, telling him to go to the armies of Virginia and meet her men. Tarleton parried her thrusts with politeness as well as he could, and after his men were rested, resumed his march.
After his departure Mrs. Lewis discovered that his men had carried off all her ducks except a single old drake. This she caused to be caught and sent it to Tarleton by a messenger, who overtook him, with her compliments, saying that the drake was lonesome without his companions, and as he had evidently overlooked it, she wished to reunite them. From that time she was known as "Captain Moll," and bears that sobriquet in the family records. She was a woman of strong character, was still living at "The Farm" in 1817, and left many descendants in Virginia and in and near Louisville, Kentucky. On the 19th of October, 1781, Tarleton's career closed, and Virginia was relieved from similar devastation for a period of eighty years by the surrender at Yorktown.
