Where Is Mike Johnson’s Ironclad Oath?
On August 16, 1867, a young farmer named Alfred McDonald Sargent Johnson walked into the courthouse of Cherokee County, Georgia. He had an oath to swear.
The effects of the Civil War were still visible in Canton, a village of about 200 people and the county seat. For one thing, that makeshift courthouse was inside a Presbyterian church—its predecessor having been torched by William Tecumseh Sherman’s men shortly before their march to the sea. For another, Georgia was still under military rule as federal officials debated how best to reconstruct the former Confederate states. How does a government reintegrate the men who, not that long ago, were engaged in a treasonous rebellion?
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Johnson had, like many of his neighbors, against the United States. At age 21, he’d joined Company F of the 3rd Georgia Cavalry. The Third had fought in the
