Was Joseph E Johnston poor

Answer 1

Johnston had been an officer of the US Army his entire adult life, more than thirty years. Nobody got rich doing that, but it paid fairly well. A day's pay for a working man was $1, a private in the army was paid $11 per month, and all officers of the Army of the rank of colonel or above (including all generals) like Johnston were paid $300 per month.

Johnston's father was a county judge and a Revolutionary War veteran. Again, not a wealthy profession, but I've never heard of a county judge starving. It was then, as now, an upper middle class living.

Johnston's brother was a US Congressman and his nephew was a US Senator. I can think of few poor people who ever got to that position, and very few who started out in life truly poor. From a family of modest means, maybe, but not really poor. A poor person was also an uneducated person then. Maybe Davie Crockett, but he only served one term in Congress.

So no, Johnston was from an upper middle class background, and maintained that level of income in his own adulthood.

Robert E. Lee was from a much more deprived background of "genteel poverty" than Johnston, due to his father's bad luck and poor finance skills. Lee's family lost their home and had to move in with and depend on relatives to keep a roof over their heads. A nice roof, to be sure, and a fine home, but it was not theirs. If Lee had not obtained an appointment to West Point he would have received no higher education, as it was beyond his family's means. Lee married well (the granddaughter of Martha Washington) and with her inheritance and his shrewd investments had become moderately wealthy by the time of the Civil War. Lee lost it all by patriotically investing in Confederate bonds.