Johnson was a native of Virginia, graduate of the University of Virginia, Baptist minister, Confederate chaplain, author, professor of English at the University of Mississippi, president of Mary Sharpe College in Winchester, Tenn., and of Hillman College in Clinton, Miss., and planter near Duck Hill, Miss. His son, John Lipscomb Johnson, Jr. (1869- 1932), was the first president of Mississippi Woman's College. Correspondence and other papers of John Lipscomb Johnson, including correspondence of John Lipscomb Johnson, Jr., and the latter's children, Cecil Johnson (b. 1900) and Rachel Johnson (b. 1903). Many letters discuss family matters, social events, and daily activities in Mississippi and Tennessee. Correspondence and other items document Johnson's service at the University of Mississippi and Mary Sharpe College; his compilation of biographies of University of Virginia graduates killed in the Civil War; involvements of members of the Johnson family with Southern Baptist churches; social and academic activities of students at Mississippi Woman's College, 1910s-1930s; Cecil Johnson's career teaching history, primarily at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill; Rachel Johnson's career with the Associated Press in Geneva, Switzerland, in the 1930s and with the U.S. Office of Strategic Services in Italy and North Africa in 1943 and 1945; and other, largely family, matters.
