Writing 101: Joe Johnston and 180 Degrees of Meaning
One of the things I tell my students is that the words they put on the page don’t always say what the writer thinks they say. In other words, there’s the intended message and the received message.
General Joseph E. Johnston illustrated this very point for me just the other day.
I’ve been working on the second of a two-part project on Vicksburg (coming late in the year from Casemate Illustrated). As I recounted the final days of the siege and John Pemberton’s anxiety over surrendering, I quoted a message Johnston sent to Pemberton on June 27. I want to focus here on a particular part of that message:
Negotiations with Grant for the relief of the garrison, should they become necessary, must be made by you. It would be a confession of weakness on my part, which I ought not to make, to propose them. When it becomes necessary to make terms, they may be considered as made under my authority.
The full letter can be found in the Official Records, Vol. 24, Pt. 3, Pg. 980.
In this passage, Johnston tells Pemberton to negotiate the surrender of the army. For Johnston to do so “would be a confession of weakness on my part, which I ought not to make. . . .”
So far, so good. But as I read the last sentence, I took it to mean that Johnston, worried more about his reputation than the garrison, didn’t want it to look as though he had anything to do with the pending surrender and so did not want terms “considered as made under my authority.” In other words, when Pemberton negotiated terms, Johnston wanted to keep his hands clean because otherwise, it would look as though he had authorized the terms. He did not want the stink of surrender to stick to him.
I have been fortunate that Terry Winschel, former chief historian at Vicksburg National Military Park, has been reviewing my manuscript for me. When I wrote that Johnston did not want terms “considered as made under my authority,” Terry marked it with a note for me: “Quite the contrary, Johnston wanted Pemberton to make terms and assured him that they could be made as under Johnston’s authority, but ‘No Show’ Joe would not make terms himself.”
In other words, Terry suggested, Johnston assured Pemberton that Pemberton’s negotiations would carry the weight of Johnston’s authority. That was a 180-degree interpretation of what I had come up with.
I had to puzzle this through, because it looked plain as day to me on the page. But the more I considered Terry’s note, the more I realized that the opposite interpretation could also indeed be true.
The rest of the letter didn’t offer much additional context beyond yet another of Johnston’s encouragements to hang on because help was coming—a line he’d been feeding Pemberton for six weeks by that point. “Hang on” and “negotiate terms” seem like mutually exclusive bits of advice to me, so the letter wasn’t any more helpful to me than it probably was to Pemberton.
And this is where I came to the reminder I offer my students: Johnston knows what he meant, but did he articulate his meaning clearly on the page? Would Pemberton come to the conclusion Pemberton wanted him to? For that matter, did I come to the right conclusion? Did Terry?
Johnston intended one thing, but his language offered two entirely opposite interpretations. He knew what he meant to say, so had he read over the letter, he certainly would have thought it looked fine. But did the language actually say what he intended it to say?
In the end, I agreed with Terry’s interpretation. After all, he’s been at this Vicksburg stuff a lot longer than I have! But the episode offered a good reminder about the necessity for being careful with your words.
A good topic, especially when it comes to military orders and the multiple meanings one can read into them (including self-serving nods to posterity and CMA). I’d be curious what Donald Miller has to say about Johnston’s meaning and motivation. I’m listening to the audiobook of his Vicksburg study, so can’t cite any passages or page numbers, but I did have the impression from what Miller had to say about Johnston that Joe could easily have been trying to evade responsibility with the powers that be in Richmond for instructing Pemberton to engage in negotiations with Grant “when necessary,” thus putting the onus of decision on Pemberton. Terry and others much more knowledgable on this, but would like to know Miller’s opinion. While on the topic of Vicksburg, the Ulysses S Grant Association is holding its 2025 annual meeting in Jackson from May 1-3, with a visit to Vicksburg, for those interested.
Joe Johnston was not known for the clarity of his writing. For example his orders at Seven Pines. I would say Terry’s interpretation is correct. Johnston is delegating the decision on surrender to Pemberton and assuring Pemberton that he will not interfere with or second guess what Pemberton feels must be done.
This might be giving Johnston too much credit, but I read “It would be a confession of weakness on my part, which I ought not to make, to propose them.” as meaning that he doesn’t want to undercut his position threatening Grant from the East. We know now that it wasn’t a meaningful threat, but at the time, I’d imagine Johnston was at least holding out hope that the few thousand troops he had concentrated would influence Grant’s moves.
I’m not fan of Jumping Joe, but I agree with you agreeing with Terry. Essentially, he agrees with the necessity of Pemberton surrendering (under rather good terms, as it turns out), but to do so in such a way as to not reveal the (obvious to a blind man, even Grant) Confederacy’s weakness.
I think Johnston’s intent is clear enough in the message, especially within the context of the military situation at the time. Johnston is with his own army east of Vicksburg. If he were to propose the negotiations it might imply that his army was weak as well (which it was), but there was no reason to give Grant that idea during negotiations. It’s a bit like playing poker.
There’s another key piece of context that matters … Johnston is answering Pemberton’s dispatch of 22 June (really 23 June) … in that missive, Pemberton suggests, in order to not lose the city and the army, that Johnston open negotiations with Grant on terms for the surrender of city … he states: “Not knowing your force or plans, he (Grant) may accede to your proposition to pass this army out with all its arms and equipage … this proposal would come with greater prospects of success and better grace from you, while necessarily could not come at all from me.”
Johnston, who knows the city and army is already lost, declines and authorizes Pemberton to cut the best deal he can … as far as the “stink of surrender” goes, there would be plenty to go around — Pemberton for losing the town and his army … and Johnston, the theater commander, for his half-hearted attempt to relieve Pemberton … agree with Mr. Winchell’s assessment.
Not picking up what you’re laying down. To my reading, it’s strictly business, the equivalent of, “you may buy those apples with my credit card.” However, that said, but, – and other juxtapositional words to start this sentence – having read a good book about the Battle of Jackson, Joe Johnston comes off quite insincere in his communications with Pemberton at the time of Jackson’s de-occupation by Confederate forces with Grant on it’s doorstep.
From what research I have done on Johnston’s relief efforts for Vicksburg, that is, the actions cavalry under Brig. Gen W. Wirt Adams, Johnston’s stabs/pocks with the forces at his disposal were never pressed in a timely and aggressive enough fashion to even hope to receive the Vicksburg garrison. Much like his efforts on the Virginia Peninsula earlier, and before Atlanta afterward. Much to Adam’s consternation.
I agree with Terry that Johnston is both giving his authorization to surrender (which he euphemistically calls “the relief of the garrison”), and that the terms can be considered to be made under his (Johnston’s) authority. Perhaps Johnston for some reason felt that he needed to offer the shield of his authority as army commander so as to invoke the principles of the Dix-Hill Cartel, which required prisoners to be paroled when two army commanders made terms.
I second the comment by Mark Harnitchek. As he says, the context matters. Mark points out that in a June 23 [sic] dispatch [OR, vol. 24, pt. 3, p. 974], Pemberton had proposed that, rather than what Pemberton apparently saw as a futile effort of trying to cut his way out of Vicksburg in an attempt to save his force (which Johnston had proposed in cooperation with Smith), Johnston communicate with Grant. Pemberton hoped that, either from a true position of strength or through negotiations, Johnston could persuade Grant to allow Pemberton’s army to evacuate Vicksburg with its arms to fight another day. That was probably a forlorn hope, but it seems as if it was worth a try. Grant would not get Pemberton’s force, but would get Vicksburg. Instead, Johnston idly muses that maybe everything may still work out. In that regard, Johnston reminds me of Humphrey Bogart’s character Rick in Casablanca, who at one point unhelpfully comments: “Well everybody in Casablanca has problems. Yours may work out.”