MR. JUSTICE WILLIAM JOHNSON, JURIST IN LIMINE: THE JUDGE AS HISTORIAN AND MAKER OF HISTORY

In the year 1822 A. E. Miller of No. 4 Broad-street, near the Bay, Charleston, South Carolina, "Printed for the Author" the Sketches of the Life and Correspondence of Nathanael Greene, Major General of The Armies of The United States, In The War of The Revolution. The fly-leaf announced that the work was "Compiled Chiefly from Original Materials" and that it was in "Two Volumes" by William Johnson of Charleston, South Carolina. It was, indeed, a substantial publication "grown to a bulk . . . never anticipated" of some nine hundred thirty-eight pages exclusive of numerous pages in small print comprising the Preface, Appendices and a Postscript. There was the usual copyright legend and a dedication which reflected a deep emotional tone, for it was "to the Venerable Survivors of the Soldiers of the Revolution" by one "who in humility, acknowledges that, exalted as had been his previous admiration of their worth and services, he had formed but a faint idea of their virtues and sufferings, until drawn to the study of their actions in the unaffected narrative and unquestionable authority of their own correspondence." His interest clearly was not in his "hero" only.