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

Confederate States senator The Confederate Senate was the upper house of the Confederate States Congress, Congress of the Confederate States of America. Its members were, like those of the United States Senate, elected for six year terms by the state legislature of each sta ...

for

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma ...

, 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, fully the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America, was a unicameral congress of deputies and delegates called together from the Southern States which became the governing ...

from 1861 to 1862.

Early life and education

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

Scott County Scott County is the name of eleven counties in the United States of America: *Scott County, Arkansas *Scott County, Illinois *Scott County, Indiana *Scott County, Iowa, the most populous county on the list *Scott County, Kansas, the least populous ...

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

, to

Benjamin Benjamin ( ''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 younger of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel, and Jacob's twe ...

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 ranking office in the Executive branch of the United States government, executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks f ...

under

Martin Van Buren Martin Van Buren ( ; ; December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was the eighth president of the United States, serving from 1837 to 1841. A primary founder of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as Attorney General o ...

; and his brothers James Johnson and

John Telemachus Johnson John Telemachus Johnson (October 5, 1788 – December 17, 1856) was a minister in the Christian Church, an attorney, and a politician, elected as U.S. Representative from Kentucky. His older brothers, also politicians, included James Johnson and ...

, 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 organized incorporated territory of the United States, territory of the United States from July 4, 1819, to June 15, 1836, when the final extent of Arkansas Territory was admitted to the United States, Union as the ...

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

Little Rock Little Rock is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Arkansas, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The city's population was 202,591 as of the 2020 census. The six-county Central Arkan ...

. 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 The 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 the Choctaw in 1818 near Georgetown, Kentucky, but it ...

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

Choctaw The Choctaw ( ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States, originally based in what is now Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choct ...

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 in the 1830s of the "

Five Civilized Tribes The term Five Civilized Tribes was applied by the United States government in the early federal period of the history of the United States to the five major Native American nations in the Southeast: the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Cr ...

", 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 Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...

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 13,567 in the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Nelson County. Bardstown is named for the pioneering Bard brothers. David Bard obtained a ...

, 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, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. 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 Ambrose Hundley Sevier (November 4, 1801 – December 31, 1848) was an attorney, politician and planter from Arkansas. A member of the political Conway-Johnson family that dominated the state and national delegations in the antebellum year ...

, 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, located on the west bank of the Mississippi River. It was founded in 1833 by Nicholas Rightor and is named after the daughter of Sylvanus Phil ...

, 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 Yazo ...

, 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 a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the United States House of Representatives, U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and ...

to fill the unexpired term of Senator

Solon Borland Solon Borland (September 21, 1808 – January 1, 1864) was an American politician, journalist, physician and military officer. He served as a United States Senator from Arkansas from 1848 to 1853. Later in life, he served as an officer of the Co ...

. 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), also known as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or Dixieland, was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States from 1861 to 1865. It comprised eleven U.S. states th ...

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. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

, 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 Politics of the United States, American political figures and List of United States political families, political families, along with other informa ...

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Robert Ward 1814 births 1879 deaths People from Scott County, Kentucky Family of Richard Mentor Johnson 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 19th-century American planters 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 American 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 Members of the United States House of Representatives who owned slaves Arkansas attorneys general 19th-century members of the United States House of Representatives 19th-century United States senators

Early life and education

Political career

Later life and death

See also

References

Further reading

External links