NEW INFO. HISTORY RE-WRITTEN. POST CORRECTED! Brigadier General Albert Sidney Johnston upon his return from Utah in 1860, was given a regulation Model 1860 Staff Officer's sword by his admiring friend Major Fitz-John Porter (Assistant Adjutant General). This form of sword, now known to this writer, was not typically for field use, but was never-the-less a fine gift from his former Utah Chief of Staff. More importantly, Johnston, earlier was presented a Model 1850 Staff and Field sword by his Utah field staff. This was sometime after November of 1857 when actually in Utah Territory. This sword is now in a private collection.
When General Johnston was mortally wounded, Colonel William Preston Johnston, his son by his first marriage, came to Corinth MS on April 17th 1862 and claimed all his father's equipment. The only Shiloh campaign item he intended to send to his step mother, and this must have proved impossible under wartime conditions, was a "Station Uniform" (dress uniform). He gave his Uncle William Preston the PISTOL his father wore and a canteen. Other than a blanket, which he gave Ran, Johnston's freed slave and 2 horses (one sold to William Preston, the other Fire-eater send to Arkansas to recuperate) all the other "trappings" he carried to Virginia; I am certain immediately. Among these was his father's "1 sword". We believe strongly that William Preston Johnston wore his father's sword as ADC to Jefferson Davis for the next three years. The "trappings his father used at Shiloh" were taken from him (WPJ), when captured, as trophies by members of the 4th Michigan Cavalry, May 10, 1865. When his father, General Johnston, fled California in 1861 he carried very little with him; a horse a paid servant and an ambulance. Most of his military trappings from a 35 year career he, out of necessity, left with his second wife in California Eliza Griffin Johnston. When he arrived in Richmond, he had only the basics. One has to believe a General would choose to wear a general officer's sword as this was regulation for general officers in the field! All the items subsequently donated to museums and family members by Mrs. Griffin Johnston (ca. 1890) were the items Johnston left in California in 1861. Mrs. Johnston at no time left California 1861-65. We have the Shiloh sword at hand, namely, the regulation 1850 Staff and Field General Officer's sword presented ASJ by "members of Staff" in Utah Territory. In conclusion, I direct you to the New Orleans Metairie Cemetery equestrian statue of Johnston designed in great detail by Alexander Doyle under William Preston Johnston personal supervision. On that statue Johnston is clearly not wearing a cavalry saber, nor a Model 1860 Staff sword, but a line officer's or General Officer's M1850 sword; certainly this is a facsimile of the sword he got from "Staff" just a few years earlier when in Utah. In fact, the exacting and renowned Civil War artist Don Troiani chose Doyle's Metaire equestrian statue of Johnston as his model in his work "Men of Arkansas". Supporting documents on file with the author of this email.