Brigadier General Albert Sidney Johnston upon his return from Utah in 1860, was given a regulation "line officer's" sword by his admiring friend and Johnston's Utah Adjutant, Fitz-John Porter (Assistant Adjutant General). The sword befit his new brevet rank of Brigadier General USA (November 1857). When General Johnston was mortally wounded, Colonel William Preston Johnston, his son by his first marriage, came to Corinth MS on April 17th 1862 and claimed all his father's equipment. The only Shiloh campaign item he intended to send to his step mother, and this must have proved impossible under wartime conditions, was a "Station Uniform" (dress uniform). He gave his Uncle William Preston the PISTOL his father wore and a canteen. Other than a blanket, which he gave Ran, Johnston's freed slave and 2 horses (one sold to William Preston, the other Fire-eater send to Arkansas to recuperate) all the other "trappings" he carried to Virginia; I am certain immediately. Among these was his father's "1 sword". We believe strongly that William Preston Johnston wore his father's sword as ADC to Jefferson Davis for the next three years. The "trappings his father used at Shiloh" were taken from him (WPJ), upon his capture, as trophies by members of the 4th Michigan Cavalry, May 10, 1865 (Century Magazine November, 1883). When his father, General Johnston fled California in 1861 he carried very little with him; a horse a paid servant and an ambulance(sic). Most of his military trappings from a 35 year career he, out of necessity, left with his second wife in California Eliza Griffin Johnston. When he arrived in Richmond, he had only the basics. In fact, months later in Corinth MS he was reported wearing a sword(Osprey) but civilian clothing (Southern Illustrated News, Jan. 31, 1863). One has to believe a General would choose to wear a "general officer's sword"! All the items subsequently donated to museums and family members by Mrs. Griffin Johnston were the items Johnston left in California in 1861. Mrs. Griffin Johnston at no time left California 1861-65 where she resided with her brother Dr. John S. Griffin of Los Angeles. We have a more likely candidate for the Shiloh sword, namely, the regulation 1850 Staff and Field Officer sword send to General Johnston in November 1860 and today residing in a private collection. In conclusion, I direct you to the New Orleans Metairie Cemetary equestrian statue of Johnston designed in great detail by Alexander Doyle under his son's (William Preston Johnston, correspondence on file.) personal supervision. On that wonderful statue Johnston is clearly not wearing a cavalry sword, but a line officer's sword; certainly this is a facsimile of the sword given to him by Fitz-John Porter fourteen months before his death at Shiloh. In fact, the prolific and renowned Civil War artist Don Troiani chose Doyle's Metaire equestrian statue of Johnston as his model in his exacting work "Men of Arkansas". Supporting documents on file with the author of this email.