Angling for a Star: How George D. Johnston Became a Brigadier
Three-star collar insignia of a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army. About one in five of the men who achieved this rank were killed in battle, a casualty rate twice that of brigadiers in the Union army. It was the summer of 1864. As the Confederate army under General Joseph E. Johnston retreats towards the outskirts of Atlanta, a command scramble ensued when it suspected among the officers of Brigadier General Zachariah Deas’ Alabama brigade that their commander was leaving the service. Deas’ brigade, consisting of the 19 th , 22 nd , 25 th , 39 th , and 50 th Alabama regiments, had seen service with the Army of Tennessee going back to the days before Shiloh. General Deas, who had raised the 22 nd Alabama at the outset of the war and armed it at his personal expense, was wounded at Shiloh and subsequently commissioned brigadier on December 13, 1862. Deas missed Murfreesboro due to illness, but led his brigade through Tullahoma, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, and the i...