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Kentucky attorney, soldier, and politician. Attended Pisgah Academy and graduated from Centre College in 1838. Attended Princeton University and studied law at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. Admitted to the bar in 1838. Practiced law in Lexington. Married to Mary Cyrene Burch Breckinridge. Father of Joseph Cabell Breckinridge, Clifton Rodes Breckinridge, Frances Breckinridge Steele, John Milton Breckinridge, John Witherspoon Breckinridge, and Mary Desha Breckinridge Maltby. Served in the 3rd Kentucky Infantry as a major during the Mexican War. Member of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky in 1849. Democratic party member from the Eighth Congressional District of Kentucky in the United States House of Representatives from 1851 to 1855. Vice president of the United States under James Buchanan from 1856 to 1860. Ran unsuccessfully for President of the United States as a Southern Democrat in 1860. Democratic party member of the United States Senate from March 1861 to December 1861. Expelled from the Senate in December 1861. Served in the Confederate Army as a brigadier general and major general from 1861 to 1865. Secretary of war for the Confederate States of America from January 1865 to April 1865. Fled to Cuba after the war and took up residence in Europe.
First governor of the provisional Confederate government of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Georgetown, Kentucky, native. Son of William Johnson and Betsy Payne Johnson. Married to Ann Viley Johnson on August 20, 1833. Father of Eliza Woolfolk Johnson, Willa Viley Johnson, Madison Conyers Johnson, Martha Lydia Johnson, Junius Ward Johnson, Warren Viley Johnson, Henry Viley Johnson, and Euclid Lane Johnson. Educated at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. Practiced law in Georgetown, Kentucky. Planter in Scott County, Kentucky, and Helena, Arkansas. Member of the Democratic Party. Member of the House of Representatives of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from Scott County from 1838 to 1840. Owned fourteen enslaved persons in Scott County in 1850. Owned twenty-six enslaved persons in Scott County in 1860. Member of the Southern Rights Party. First provisional Confederate governor of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from November 20, 1861, to April 8, 1862. Served as an aide to Confederate General John C. Breckinridge. Served in the 4th Kentucky Infantry Regiment (C.S.A.) as a private from April 6, 1862 to April 8, 1862. Died on April 8, 1862 from wounds sustained at the Battle of Shiloh.
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Scott County, Kentucky, resident. Kentucky native. Daughter of Willa Viley and Lydia Smith Viley. Married to George Washington Johnson. Mother of of Eliza Woolfolk Johnson, Willa Viley Johnson, Madison Conyers Johnson, Martha Lydia Johnson, Junius Ward Johnson, Warren Viley Johnson, Henry Viley Johnson, and Euclid Lane Johnson. Resident in Scott County, Kentucky, in 1860. Household owned twenty-six enslaved persons in Scott County in 1860.
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State in the upper south of the United States. Capital at Frankfort. Located on the Ohio River.
Seat of Scott County, Kentucky.
to to be which was not sustained by the Judgement of the people. I wanted personal honor and political liberty and Constitutional state Government, and for these I drew the sword, and until those terms could be secured either by negotiation or on the dictated from the field of battle, of course we could have no other duty than to remain at our post
Provisional governor
of
my wife knows how well I love her and she needs no message from to tell her how I love her
I wanted and my ^wife &^ children to make duty to God and man the rule of their conduct