General Joseph E. Johnston (1807-1891) was born in Farmville, Virginia, to Mary Valentine Wood (1769-1825) and Peter Johnston (1763-1831). He attended the United States Military Academy (West Point), graduating in 1829, thirteenth in his class. In 1845 Johnston married Lydia Mulligan Sims McLane (1822-1887), but had no children. He served in a variety of roles during the Mexican War (1845-1848). Johnston was promoted to brigadier general in 1860 and served as the quartermaster general. In 1861, he resigned his commission in the United States Army and accepted the position of brigadier general in the Confederate Army. He commanded the Confederate forces in the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas). He would eventually become the commanding officer of the Confederate Army of Tennessee, but was removed from command in 1864 by Presdent Jefferson Davis. In 1865, he returned to active duty to fight U. S. General William T. Sherman. However, the armies he was given to command were severely depleted, and he surrendered in April 1865. After the war, Johnston served as the president of the Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad Company (1866-1867) and later as an insurance agent for the Liverpool and London and Globe Insurance Company. Johnston contracted pneumonia during General Sherman's funeral, on February 21, 1891, because he refused to put on his hat in the icy weather out of respect for Sherman. He died several weeks later in Washington, D.C., on March 21, 1891.