Cameroon and in the Niger delta, and he became in 1887 acting consul for that region. A British protectorate over the Niger delta had been notified in June 1885, and between the date of his appointment and 1888, together with the consul E. H. Hewett, Johnston laid the foundations of the British administration in that part of the delta not reserved for the Royal Niger Company. His action in removing the turbulent chief Ja-ja (an ex-slave who had risen to considerable power in the palm-oil trade) occasioned considerable criticism but was approved by the Foreign Office. It led to the complete pacification of a region long disturbed by trade disputes. During these three years of residence in the Gulf of Guinea Johnston ascended the Cameroon Mountain, and made large collections of the flora and fauna of Cameroon for the British Museum.
In the spring of 1889 he was sent to Lisbon to negotiate an arrangement for the delimitation of the British and Portuguese spheres of influence in South-East Africa, but the scheme drawn up, though very like the later arrangement of those regions, was not given effect to at the time. On his return from Lisbon he was despatched to Mozambique as consul for Portuguese East Africa, and was further charged with a mission to Lake Nyasa to pacify that region, then in a disturbed state owing to the attacks of slave-trading Arabs on the stations of the African Lakes Trading Company—an unofficial war, in which Captain (afterwards Colonel Sir Frederick) Lugard and Mr (afterwards Sir Alfred) Sharpe distinguished themselves. Owing to the unexpected arrival on the scene of Major Serpa Pinto, Johnston was compelled to declare a British protectorate over the Nyasa region, being assisted in this work by John Buchanan (vice-consul), Sir Alfred Sharpe, Alfred Swann and others. A truce was arranged with the Arabs on Lake Nyasa, and within twelve months the British flag, by agreement with the natives, had been hoisted over a very large region which extended north of Lake Tanganyika to the vicinity of Uganda, to Katanga in the Congo Free State, the Shiré Highlands and the central Zambezi. Johnston’s scheme, in fact, was that known as the “Cape-to-Cairo,” a phrase which he had brought into use in an article in The Times in August 1888. According to his arrangement there would have been an all-British route from Alexandria to Cape Town. But by the Anglo-German agreement of the 1st of July 1890 the British sphere north of Tanganyika was abandoned to Germany, and the Cape-to-Cairo route broken by a wedge of German territory. Johnston returned to British Central Africa as commissioner and consul-general in 1891, and retained that post till 1896, in which year he was made a K.C.B. His health having suffered much from African fever, he was transferred to Tunis as consul-general (1897). In the autumn of 1899 Sir Harry Johnston was despatched to Uganda as special commissioner to reorganize the administration of that protectorate after the suppression of the mutiny of the Sudanese soldiers and the long war with Unyoro. His two years’ work in Uganda and a portion of what is now British East Africa were rewarded at the close of 1901 by a G.C.M.G. In the spring of the following year he retired from the consular service. After 1904 he interested himself greatly in the affairs of the Liberian republic, and negotiated various arrangements with that negro state by which order was brought into its finances, the frontier with France was delimited, and the development of the interior by means of roads was commenced. In 1903 he was defeated as Liberal candidate for parliament at a by-election at Rochester. He met with no better success at West Marylebone at the general election of 1906.
For his services to zoology he was awarded the gold medal of the Zoological Society in 1902, and in the same year was made an honorary doctor of science at Cambridge. He received the gold medal of the Royal Geographical and the Royal Scottish Geographical societies, and other medals for his artistic work from South Kensington and the Society of Arts. His pictures, chiefly dealing with African subjects, were frequently exhibited at the Royal Academy. He was the author of numerous books on Africa, including British Central Africa (1897); The Colonization of Africa (1899); The Uganda Protectorate (1902); Liberia (1906); George Grenfell and the Congo (1908). During his travels in the north-eastern part of the Congo Free State in 1900 he was instrumental in discovering and naming the okapi, a mammal nearly allied to the giraffe. His name has been connected with many other discoveries in the African fauna and flora.
JOHNSTON, JOSEPH EGGLESTON (1807–1891), American
Confederate general in the Civil War, was born near Farmville,
Prince Edward county, Virginia, on the 3rd of February 1807.
His father, Peter Johnston (1763–1841), a Virginian of Scottish
descent, served in the War of Independence, and afterwards
became a distinguished jurist; his mother was a niece of Patrick
Henry. He graduated at West Point, in the same class with
Robert E. Lee, and was made brevet second lieutenant, 4th
Artillery, in 1829. He served in the Black Hawk and Seminole
wars, and left the army in 1837 to become a civil engineer, but
a year afterwards he was reappointed to the army as first
lieutenant, Topographical Engineers, and breveted captain for his
conduct in the Seminole war. During the Mexican war he was
twice severely wounded in a reconnaissance at Cerro Gordo, 1847,
was engaged in the siege of Vera Cruz, the battles of Contreras,
Churubusco, and Molino del Rey, the storming of Chapultepec,
and the assault on the city of Mexico, and received three brevets
for gallant and meritorious service. From 1853 to 1855 he was
employed on Western river improvements, and in 1855 he
became lieut.-colonel of the 1st U.S. Cavalry. In 1860 he
was made quartermaster-general, with the rank of brigadier-general.
In April 1861 he resigned from the United States
army and entered the Confederate service. He was commissioned
major-general of volunteers in the Army of Virginia, and
assisted in organizing the volunteers. He was later appointed a
general officer of the Confederacy, and assigned to the command
of the Army of the Shenandoah, being opposed by the Federal
army under Patterson. When McDowell advanced upon the
Confederate forces under Beauregard at Manassas, Johnston
moved from the Shenandoah Valley with great rapidity to
Beauregard’s assistance. As senior officer he took command on
the field, and at Bull Run (Manassas) (q.v.) won the first important
Confederate victory. In August 1861 he was made one of
the five full generals of the Confederacy, remaining in command
of the main army in Virginia. He commanded in the battle
of Fair Oaks (May 31, 1862), and was so severely wounded as
to be incapacitated for several months. In March 1863,
still troubled by his wound, he was assigned to the command of
the south-west, and in May was ordered to take immediate
command of all the Confederate forces in Mississippi, then
threatened by Grant’s movement on Vicksburg. When Pemberton’s
army was besieged in Vicksburg by Grant, Johnston used
every effort to relieve it, but his force was inadequate. Later
in 1863, when the battle of Chattanooga brought the Federals
to the borders of Georgia, Johnston was assigned to command
the Army of Tennessee at Dalton, and in the early days of May
1864 the combined armies of the North under Sherman advanced
against his lines. For the main outlines of the famous campaign
between Sherman and Johnston see American Civil War (§ 29).
From the 9th of May to the 17th of July there were skirmishes,
actions and combats almost daily. The great numerical superiority
of the Federals enabled Sherman to press back the Confederates
without a pitched battle, but the severity of the
skirmishing may be judged from the casualties of the two
armies (Sherman’s about 26,000 men, Johnston’s over 10,000),
and the obstinate steadiness of Johnston by the fact that his
opponent hardly progressed more than one mile a day. But
a Fabian policy is never acceptable to an eager people, and when
Johnston had been driven back to Atlanta he was superseded
by Hood with orders to fight a battle. The wisdom of Johnston’s
plan was soon abundantly clear, and the Confederate
cause was already lost when Lee reinstated him on the 23rd of
February 1865. With a handful of men he opposed Sherman’s
march through the Carolinas, and at Bentonville, N.C., fought
and almost won a most gallant and skilful battle against heavy
odds. But the Union troops steadily advanced, growing in
strength as they went, and a few days after Lee’s surrender at
