Robert Ward Johnson (July 22, 1814 – July 26, 1879) was an American planter and lawyer who served as the senior Confederate States senator for

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

, a seat that he was elected to in 1861. He previously served as a delegate from Arkansas to the

Provisional Congress of the Confederate States The Provisional Congress of the Confederate States, also known as the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America, was a congress of Deputy (legislator), deputies and Delegate (American politics), delegates called together from th ...

from 1861 to 1862.

Early life and education

Robert Ward Johnson was born on July 22, 1814, in Scott County,

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

, to

Benjamin Benjamin ( he, ''Bīnyāmīn''; "Son of (the) right") blue letter bible: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3225/kjv/wlc/0-1/ H3225 - yāmîn - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) was the last of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's thi ...

and Matilda ( Williams) Johnson."Robert Ward Johnson (1814-1879)"
''Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture'', accessed 12 November 2013 His father had three brothers who were elected as U.S. Congressmen and the family was politically prominent in the state. His grandfather had acquired thousands of acres of land in the area at the end of the eighteenth century. The family were slaveholders. His siblings included a sister Juliette. His paternal uncles were

Richard Johnson Richard or Dick Johnson may refer to: Academics * Dick Johnson (academic) (1929–2019), Australian academic * Richard C. Johnson (1930–2003), professor of electrical engineering * Richard A. Johnson, artist and professor at the University of ...

, a United States Representative and Senator, and

vice president of the United States The vice president of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest officer in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice p ...

under

Martin Van Buren Martin Van Buren ( ; nl, Maarten van Buren; ; December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was an American lawyer and statesman who served as the eighth president of the United States from 1837 to 1841. A primary founder of the Democratic Party, he ...

; and his brothers James Johnson and John Telemachus Johnson, older and younger, respectively, who were each elected as U.S. Representatives from Kentucky. In 1821 when Johnson was seven, his parents moved the family to

Arkansas Territory The Arkansas Territory was a territory of the United States that existed from July 4, 1819, to June 15, 1836, when the final extent of Arkansas Territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Arkansas. Arkansas Post was the first territo ...

, where his father had been appointed as Superior Judge. They settled in

Little Rock ( The "Little Rock") , government_type = Council-manager , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_party = D , leader_title2 = Council , leader_name2 ...

. His father was appointed in 1836 as the first federal district judge in the new state of Arkansas. Johnson was later sent back to Kentucky to study at the

Choctaw Academy Choctaw Academy was a historic Indian boarding school at Blue Spring in Scott County, Kentucky for Choctaw students. It existed from 1818 to 1842. History Baptists started an academy for Choctaws in 1818 near Georgetown, Kentucky, but it quickly f ...

, which his uncle Richard Johnson had founded in 1825 on his farm near Georgetown, primarily to educate

Choctaw The Choctaw (in the Choctaw language, Chahta) are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Alabama and Mississippi. Their Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choctaw people are ...

boys from the Southeast in the English language and European-American culture. He was handsomely paid by the federal government.Carolyn Foreman, "The Choctaw Academy"
, ''Chronicles of Oklahoma'', Volume 6, No. 4, December 1928, accessed 12 November 2013 At times, 200–300 boys attended the academy. The Choctaw students were at the school in the period prior to the

Indian Removal Indian removal was the United States government policy of forced displacement of self-governing tribes of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi Riverspecifically, to a ...

in the 1830s of the "

Five Civilized Tribes The term Five Civilized Tribes was applied by European Americans in the colonial and early federal period in the history of the United States to the five major Native American nations in the Southeast—the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek ...

", but they were under pressure in the Southeast from encroaching settlers. His uncle kept the school going into the late 1830s, after some peoples had been forcibly relocated to

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...

west of the Mississippi River. The young Johnson went on to study at St. Joseph's College, an academy in

Bardstown Bardstown is a home rule-class city in Nelson County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 11,700 in the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Nelson County. Bardstown is named for the pioneering Bard brothers. David Bard obtained a l ...

, and graduated. After St. Joseph's, Johnson returned to Little Rock. He studied law as a legal apprentice and was admitted to the bar in 1835. He married Sarah Frances Smith in 1836. They had six children together; three survived to adulthood. Sarah died in 1862, during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

. The next year, Johnson at the age of 49 married her younger sister, Laura. They had no children.

Political career

In Little Rock, Johnson soon became involved in Democratic Party politics. He was elected as the prosecuting attorney for Little Rock and served from 1840 to 1843. He effectively acted as the state's attorney. His sister Juliette married Ambrose Sevier, who was later elected as US Senator from Arkansas. Both Sevier and Johnson became part of The Family, a group of men related by marriage and politics, who dominated the state Democratic Party and politics, and its national representation in the antebellum years. Prior to the American Civil War, Johnson moved his family to

Helena, Arkansas Helena is the eastern portion of Helena–West Helena, Arkansas, a city in Phillips County, Arkansas. It was founded in 1833 by Nicholas Rightor and is named after the daughter of Sylvanus Phillips, an early settler of Phillips County and the n ...

, in the

Mississippi Delta The Mississippi Delta, also known as the Yazoo–Mississippi Delta, or simply the Delta, is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi (and portions of Arkansas and Louisiana) that lies between the Mississippi and Yaz ...

, where he established his law practice. Johnson was elected from there, beginning in 1846, to the Thirtieth, Thirty-first, and Thirty-second Congresses. He became chairman of the House Committee on Indian Affairs. In this period, his brother-in-law Sevier was chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Johnson declined to run for reelection in 1852. He was appointed by the legislature to the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and po ...

to fill the unexpired term of Senator

Solon Borland Solon Borland (September 21, 1808 – January 1, 1864) was an American physician who served as a United States Senator from Arkansas from 1848 to 1853. In later life, he served as an officer of the Confederate States Army who commanded a cavalry ...

. In 1855, he was elected by the legislature to the seat, serving the full term until 3 March 1861. After the outbreak of the

, he served as a delegate to the Provisional Government of the

Confederate States The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...

in 1862. He served as a member of the Confederate Senate from 1862 to 1865.

Later life and death

The American Civil War ended Johnson's political career. Property damage and the abolition of slavery ruined him economically. After the war, he practiced law in Washington, D.C., for more than a decade. Returning to Arkansas in the late 1870s, he ran unsuccessfully for reelection to the Senate in 1878. Johnson died in Little Rock in 1879. He is buried in the historic

Mount Holly Cemetery Mount Holly Cemetery is a historic cemetery located in the Quapaw Quarter area of downtown Little Rock in the U.S. state of Arkansas, and is the burial place for numerous Arkansans of note. It was listed on the National Register of Historic ...

there.

References

External links

*
Robert Ward Johnson
at

The Political Graveyard The Political Graveyard is a website and database that catalogues information on more than 277,000 American political figures and political families, along with other information. The name comes from the website's inclusion of burial locations ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Robert Ward 1814 births 1879 deaths People from Scott County, Kentucky Richard Mentor Johnson family Conway-Johnson family American people of Scottish descent Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Arkansas Democratic Party United States senators from Arkansas Deputies and delegates to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States Confederate States of America senators American lawyers admitted to the practice of law by reading law American male non-fiction writers American planters American slave owners Farmers from Arkansas American political writers American Freemasons American proslavery activists Lawyers from Washington, D.C. 19th-century American lawyers 19th-century American writers 19th-century male writers People of Arkansas in the American Civil War Infectious disease deaths in Arkansas Burials at Mount Holly Cemetery United States senators who owned slaves

Early life and education

Political career

Later life and death

See also

References

Further reading

External links