Samuel Dixon Johnston

Sam’s birthplace, like his father’s, was in the borough of Muncy, just east of the Lycoming county seat of Williamsport in north central Pennsylvania. The town’s name was derived from the Munsee-Lenape tribe of local Native Americans. The family’s name was actually Johnson, and Sam was the tenth on the list of offspring in the 1850 census. He was born four months after his grandfather died, the man who came to the area from Berks County 40 years earlier to establish the family farm.

In the 1860 census there were many Pennsylvanians with the same name as Sam’s, so his whereabouts aren’t certain, and it’s not known when and why he would find his way to Philadelphia. But that’s where he was on February 3, 1864 when he joined Company F of the 183rd Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. He was 16 at the time but listed his age as 18 and a resident of the city.

The regiment was recruited and commanded by Colonel George Potts McClean who is also buried here. With little training and no experience, they promptly joined the Army of the Potomac in Virginia. In just the month of May they took part in seven different engagements during the  Battle of the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania Courthouse. That was followed by the long siege of Petersburg that finally ended in March of 1865. It included trench warfare and a number of raids on the rail lines that supplied General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate forces. 

Sam’s obituary includes this exaggerated story about shaking Abraham Lincoln’s hand. On April 2 he was wounded and admitted to a hospital. That was the day that Union forces severed the railroad west of Petersburg and the Confederate government fled Richmond. The next day, General Ulysses S. Grant met the President in Petersburg for 90 minutes before leaving with his troops to catch up with Lee. 

Lincoln remained in the area, walking the streets of Richmond, and Mrs. Lincoln arrived on April 6. Records confirm that he visited hospitals in Petersburg before returning to Washington on April 8, so this is actually when he shook Sam’s hand. 

Meanwhile the rest of the 183rd had joined the chase to Appomattox Court House. They witnessed the formal ending of the war on April 9 while Sam was still in Petersburg. President Lincoln was back in Washington by then, where he was shot five days later. 

The 183rd marched back to Washington, D.C. to be in the “Grand Review of the Armies” on May 23. President Andrew Johnson envisioned the parade to honor the Union armies (without overtly gloating over their victory) and bring the nation out of mourning over Lincoln’s death.

Sam was still just 17 years old when he was “mustered out” of the Army on July 13. By the end of 1865 he applied for and received a disability pension. The first pension system was based on rank and injury but it never made anyone wealthy; a “totally disabled” private received just $8 a month.

He returned to the agricultural life he knew and still used the Johnson name in the 1870 census. But as the nation’s 100th birthday was celebrated in 1876, Sam was in the nation’s birthplace when he is said to have married Ella Steen. 

At least that’s what was reported on future census lists, but in 1880 both of them were listed as single, living at separate addresses with relatives. For most of 1876 Ella was just 15 years old. Maybe her parents required a long engagement. But, starting in 1880 and over the next 19 years they welcomed three boys and five girls, losing one after her first birthday. The first three were baptized as “Johnson” but everyone assumed the Johnston name by the end of the century.

With his affinity for the soil, Sam found a job working for the city in Fairmount Park. He rose in rank from laborer to gardener to forester over his 40-year tenure. He was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, the largest advocacy group and fraternal organization for Civil War vets. When he died he was one of the few surviving members.

Ella died in 1920 so, at age 73, Sam most likely retired shortly afterward and lived with a daughter. For several years after that he enjoyed visiting public schools around the Memorial Day holiday, demonstrating the importance of the day of remembrance as one of the last living veterans of what was originally called “the War of the  Rebellion.”

He was living with one of his granddaughters when he died of stomach cancer. Six of his seven children were at his gravesite to honor his 92 years of life. Of the almost 600 confirmed Civil War veterans at Mount Moriah (and that number could easily exceed 1,000), the most current research indicates his was the last known veteran’s burial here from that war.

(According to the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, the last surviving veteran from Pennsylvania died in 1949.)