Johnston, George J., 1842-1881.

George J. Johnston (1842-1881) was born July 6, 1842, in Wynton, Alabama. He lived in Montgomery, Alabama, before going to school in Salem, Alabama, where he learned the printing trade. He then moved to Opelika, Alabama, and then back to Montgomery. During the Civil War, he joined the Confederate Army as a private in the 60th Alabama Infantry. On December 12, 1863, he was wounded in his right foot at Bean Station, Rutledge County, Tennessee, and was temporarily discharged. In September, 1864, he rejoined the Army and helped defend Petersburg, Virginia, against the Union Army. He was wounded in his leg in March, 1865, during the Petersburg Campaign and given a sixty day furlough to return home. After the Civil War, George J. Johnston returned to Montgomery, Alabama, where he worked both as a printer and as an editor for the Montgomery Mail. He married a Miss Hilliard in 1868, and they had five children before eventually divorcing. In 1878 he left his former wife and children and moved to Atlanta where he worked as a reporter. Four years later, in 1881, he was found dead in his room from a morphine overdose, an assumed suicide. The 1881 Atlanta City Directory lists him as working as a printer for the Atlanta Constitution.