I sat with Jo Johnston in the Forty-sixth Congress of the United States. I was young and he was ripe in years and experience. I sought him and cultivated him and never tired of listening to the story from his lips of his maneuvers in the last days of the Confederacy. He was small of stature, square built, and straight as an arrow, with a big round bald head and keen gray eyes that glittered like stars. Congress was not congenial to him—he was not an orator but a soldier; he was not a statesman, but a general. He knew how to wield an army but was helpless on the battlefield of argument. During the fiercest fights of the two great contending parties on the floor of the house, he daily walked to and fro like a caged lion, his head up, his eyes sparkling and his whole attitude one of excitement, yet taking no part in the struggle. But he was a faithful representative of his people, and was loved by all who knew him. In 1887 he received a crushing blow in the death of his wife. Their childlessness and her invalidism and the long years of army life had drawn them together in an unusual degree, and he was never able to recover his old time joy in life after his loss. Naturally the distinguished veteran was in great demand on the occasion of re-union and memorial exercises. Always averse to anything savoring of publicity, he attempted to fill these engagements in an unobtrusive way, but at times the enthusiasm of his old followers put all his efforts to naught. This was shown at the memorial exercises at Atlanta in the spring of 1890, of which an Atlanta paper gives the following account: