Albert Sidney Johnston

General Albert Sidney Johnston (February 2, 1803 – April 6, 1862) was a U.S. military officer who served as a general officer in three different armies: the Texas Army, the United States Army, and the Confederate States Army. He saw extensive combat during his 34-year military career, fighting actions in the Black Hawk War, the Texas-Indian Wars, the U.S.-Mexican War, the Utah War, and the American Civil War, where he died on the battlefield. Considered by Confederate States President Jefferson Davis to be the finest general officer in the Confederacy before the later emergence of Robert E. Lee, he was killed early in the Civil War at the Battle of Shiloh on April 6, 1862. Johnston was the highest-ranking officer on either side killed during the war. Davis believed the loss of General Johnston "was the turning point of our fate." Joseph E. Johnston, a distinguished Confederate general who was not related, assumed command in the Western Theater in November 1862, several months subsequent to A.S. Johnston's passing.