Ben W. Johnson (1835–1907)

Benjamin Whitfield Johnson, a lawyer and farmer who lived in Columbia County, served the Confederacy during the Civil War as a company and regimental commander of the Fifteenth Arkansas Infantry. He led the regiment from 1862 to 1863, until its capture at Port Hudson, Louisiana. After release from prison in February 1865, he briefly served in the Trans-Mississippi Department until the end of the war. Johnson served in the Arkansas House of Representatives from 1875 to 1876.

Benjamin W. Johnson was born on July 23, 1835, in Upson County, Georgia; the names of his parents are unknown. Little is known of his childhood and youth, but it is evident he received some form of education, as he eventually became a lawyer and moved to Arkansas around 1849. He married Nancy Houghton Hawkins in Magnolia (Columbia County) on September 4, 1856.

After the secession of Arkansas, Johnson enlisted on December 19, 1861, at Lafayette County in the Fifteenth Arkansas Infantry. [Not to be confused with either the Fifteenth (Josey’s) Arkansas Infantry or the Fifteenth (Northwest) Arkansas Infantry, Johnson’s regiment became known as the Fifteenth (Johnson’s) Arkansas Infantry.] On January 18, 1862, Johnson was appointed as adjutant of the regiment with the rank of first lieutenant. The regiment was transferred east of the Mississippi River, taking part in the battles of Fort Heiman, Fort Henry, and eventually Fort Donelson, where it was captured on February 16, 1862. Johnson was sent to Camp Chase military prison in Ohio before being transferred to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor in April. After his release and exchange in September, Johnson was elected colonel at the reorganization of the regiment when Colonel James M. Gee did not run for reelection due to bad health.

The Fifteenth Arkansas was assigned to Brigadier General William N. R. Beall’s brigade and ordered to Port Hudson. Johnson led his men in a number of smaller battles at Cross Lane, Greenfield, and Kellar’s Lane, Louisiana, until May 21, 1863, when Union forces surrounded the garrison of Port Hudson. Johnson’s Fifteenth Arkansas, as part of the left wing of Confederate defenses, erected strong earthworks supporting two cannon of the First Mississippi Artillery. The position, given the name “Fort Desperate” by its Arkansas defenders, under the command of Colonel Johnson, endured constant bombardments and repeated assaults by superior numbers during the forty-eight-day siege, never allowing their position to be breached by the enemy. After losing many men, along with experiencing a total lack of food and almost no ammunition, Port Hudson surrendered on July 9, 1863, five days after the fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi. At the start of the campaign, Colonel Johnson commanded 484 men, with only ninety-two surrendered on July 9, resulting in an eighty-one percent casualty rate, the highest of any regiment of the Port Hudson defenses.

After capture, Johnson was sent to New Orleans before being transferred to Johnson’s Island military prison camp on September 21, 1863. He remained a prisoner until being sent to City Point, Virginia, where he was exchanged and paroled on February 24, 1865. Colonel Johnson was ordered to report to the remnant of the Fifteenth Arkansas Infantry in the Trans-Mississippi Department on March 6, 1865, where he served out the remaining two months of the war until the surrender of the department at Shreveport, Louisiana, on May 26, 1865.

Johnson returned home to Columbia County and, at some point, moved to Camden (Ouachita County), where he practiced law. He served in the Arkansas House of Representatives from 1875 to 1876 and as a local district attorney from 1876 to 1880. His wife died in 1878, and he married Elizabeth J. Curry in 1881, remaining childless.

Johnson resided in Camden until his death on May 17, 1907, with burial in the Confederate Section of Oakland Cemetery in Camden.

For additional information:
“Colonel Benjamin Whitfield Johnson.” Find a Grave. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/69836317/benjamin_whitfield-johnson (accessed May 6, 2026).

Hewitt, Lawrence Lee. Port Hudson, Confederate Bastion on the Mississippi. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1994.

Smith, Timothy B. Grant Invades Tennessee: The 1862 Battles for Forts Henry and Donelson. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2016.

Willis, James. Arkansas Confederates in the Western Theater. Dayton, OH: Morningside Press, 1998.

Anthony Rushing
Benton, Arkansas