Peter Johnson, Private, Company I

A Substitute Enlists in Baltimore

Peter Johnson was twenty-two years old when he entered the Union Army at Baltimore, Maryland, on August 27, 1864. He enlisted for three years as a substitute for Ernest Dammon. His military record describes him as a laborer, five feet seven inches tall, with black complexion, black eyes, and black hair. The enlistment papers record Tennessee as his place of birth. Johnson made his mark rather than signing his name.

Johnson entered the Army unusually late in the history of the 19th Regiment. The regiment had been organized at Camp Stanton near Benedict, Maryland, during the winter of 1863–64 and had already experienced some of its hardest fighting by the time he enlisted. In particular, Johnson was not with the regiment at the Battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864. After mustering in at Baltimore, he was sent to Virginia to join Company I.

With the 19th Regiment in Virginia

The surviving company muster rolls show Johnson present with his company through the closing months of the Civil War. He therefore joined the 19th while it was serving in the Petersburg campaign, after the catastrophic assault at the Crater but while the long siege of Petersburg was still underway. His service record contains no indication that he was wounded or hospitalized during this period.

By the spring of 1865 the Confederate defenses of Petersburg and Richmond had collapsed and General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House on April 9. The war was effectively over in Virginia, but Peter Johnson's Army service was not.

Ordered to Texas

Instead of being discharged after the fighting ended, the 19th Regiment was ordered to Texas. On June 1, 1865, the regiment left Fortress Monroe, Virginia, aboard the military steamers J.W. Everman and Cumbria. The voyage took the soldiers down the Atlantic coast, around Florida, across the Gulf of Mexico, and toward the mouth of the Rio Grande. They reached Brazos Santiago, Texas, on June 24 and then served in the Brownsville area.

For Johnson, the voyage to Texas produced the most unusual episode preserved in his military record.

The Incident Aboard the J.W. Everman

While the regiment was at sea, several enlisted men were tied up by order of Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Knorr, who commanded the troops aboard the J.W. Everman. On June 13, 1865, Johnson and Private John Gardiner of Company H were accused of cutting the men loose. The charge also alleged that Johnson and Gardiner used threatening language and then refused an order from Second Lieutenant James Murphy, the officer of the day, to return to their quarters.

Johnson was placed under arrest on June 14. A general court-martial convened at Brownsville on July 3, 1865. He faced a charge of mutiny arising from the shipboard confrontation. The surviving court-martial papers are particularly important because they preserve not merely a routine muster entry but an episode in which an enlisted soldier challenged the treatment of other men aboard the transport.

Acquitted

The court found Peter Johnson not guilty of both the specification and the charge. The proceedings and findings were approved, and he was released from arrest and returned to duty.

The outcome for his co-defendant was dramatically different. Private John Gardiner was convicted and sentenced to death by shooting, although the sentence was later commuted to five years at hard labor. Gardiner ultimately served about a year before being released. Lieutenant James Murphy, the officer whose order Johnson and Gardiner were accused of disobeying, was himself arrested the following month on a charge of stealing and was dismissed from the Army.

Johnson's acquittal is therefore an important part of the story. The Army formally considered the evidence against him and rejected the accusation that his conduct constituted mutiny.

Service at Brownsville

Johnson remained with the 19th Regiment after his acquittal. In December 1865 he was detailed as a guard at the post hospital in Brownsville. By December 1866 he was serving as a company cook. These assignments show the ordinary garrison work that occupied much of the regiment's long postwar service on the Rio Grande.

The regiment remained in Texas for roughly a year and a half after the Civil War ended. Johnson's muster-out record states that he was discharged with Company I at Brownsville on January 15, 1867. He had served from August 27, 1864 until the regiment's final muster-out. Peter Johnson's compiled military service record ends with his discharge in Texas.

Sources Consulted

• Peter Johnson, Compiled Military Service Record, Company I, 19th Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops, National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 94, microfilm publication M1822.

• Robert K. Summers, Maryland's Black Civil War Soldiers: 19th Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops (2020), Peter Johnson profile and regimental history.

• Additional online research concerning the 19th Regiment's June 1865 movement from Fortress Monroe to Texas and the military transport J.W. Everman. No independently verifiable postwar record was found that could be confidently attributed to this Peter Johnson.