difficult would it have been for them to enter into the service, if they
had not the active assistance of our Southern women. The Maryland Line,
as you know, was organized in May, 1861, for the special purpose of
representing our State in the Confederate army. It had, therefore, no
State to look to for arms or clothing. Virginia had not arms enough for
her own necessities, and there was danger that the Maryland battalion
would be disbanded, because of the impossibility of procuring arms. In
this exigency Mrs. Bradley T. Johnson volunteered to go to North
Carolina, her native State, and there appeal to her countrymen for
assistance. The journey was difficult, but she made her way to Raleigh,
N. C., and obtained from Governor Ellis 500 Mississippi rifles, with ten
thousand cartridges and necessary equipment. In Richmond Mrs. Johnson
procured a supply of blankets and camp equipage, and ordered that a
number of tents be made at once. On June 3, 1861, ten days after she
left camp on her difficult mission, she delivered to her gallant husband
the results of her enterprise. The historian justly says that the
following receipt of the Chief of Ordnance of Stonewall Jackson’s
command has probably no parallel in the history of war:
“Received, Ordnance Department, Harper’s Ferry, June 3, 1861, of
Mrs. B. T. Johnson, five hundred Mississippi rifles, (cal. 54,) ten
thousand cartridges and thirty-five hundred caps.”
The Maryland Line adopted resolutions thanking Mrs. Johnson “for her
earnest, patriotic and successful efforts in arming and equipping the
command,” and pledging themselves, “that the arms she has obtained
shall, at the close of the war, be returned to the State of North
Carolina without stain or dishonor.” The arms were not so returned,
unless some Federal officer has generously undertaken to fulfil the
pledge. In this “era of good feeling” it would not be out of place. But
certain it is that these arms, wherever they now may be, were borne in
honor and surrendered without discredit.
The astonishing facility with which Mrs. Johnson effected what had
appeared to be almost an impossibility can be accounted for. The
daughter of the Hon. R. M. Sanders, of North Carolina, she enjoyed the
benefit of the respect in which her distinguished father was held. The
graces of person and qualities of mind which were her just inheritance,
gave the power to accomplish an enterprise which required the “daring
gallantry of a man, with the persuasive power and perseverance of a
woman.” There is revolutionary blood in her veins. It is no new thing
for those of her line to be classed with patriots who are stigmatized as
Rebels. The grandfather of Mrs. Bradley T. Johnson was William Johnson,
of South Carolina, who was Judge of the Supreme Court of the United
States from 1801 to 1836, and her great grandmother, Sarah Johnson, was
the wife of William Johnson, a conspicuous patriot in Charleston in the
Revolutionary war. When the city was occupied by the British in 1781,
Sarah Johnson concealed cartridges, and other ammunition, in her
petticoats, and so carried to the patriots beyond the lines the means of
continuing the fight. So Mrs. Johnson emulated, in our civil war, the
deeds of those of her lineage in the conflict which gave independence to
what were then the “free, sovereign and independent States.”
Whilst Mrs. Johnson was in Raleigh, N. C., in quest of arms, an address
was delivered by the hon. Kenneth Raynor, who aptly said:
“If great events produce great men, so in the scene before us we
have proof that great events produce great women. It was one that
partook more of the romance than of the realities of life. One of
our own daughters, raised in the lap of luxury, blessed with the
enjoyment of all the elements of luxury and ease, had quit her
peaceful home, followed her husband to the camp, and leaving him in
that camp, has come to the home of her childhood to seek aid for him
and his comrades—not because he is her husband, but because he is
fighting the battles of his country against a tyrant”
So was it, it may be added, of all Southern women. Their love for those
who were near to them was intensified and multiplied by the knowledge
that they were fighting, as their ancestors had fought, to preserve and
maintain such freedom as had been won some eighty years before.
* * * * *
It was moreover a Baltimore woman who gave to the South the one great
lyric of the war. Written by James R. Randall, of Maryland, it was, in a
moment of inspiration, set to the air of an old college song, and thus
was the undying music “married to immortal verse.” Mrs. Hetty Cary
Martin kindly consents to tell the story:
“After our bridges were burnt by Baltimore militia to prevent the
passage of Northern troops, one of the regiments, formed mainly of
young men of social prominence here, was disbanded. The men went
South in dead of night with only the clothes they wore.
“It soon became known among our friends that boxes of clothing were
to be sent to them from our house. Daily and nightly meetings were
held there in defiance of the vigilance of the authorities, whose
frequent searchings of the house made it known in the papers as
‘Headquarters of Rebeldom.’ Fingers and machines were ceaselessly at
work; subscriptions came freely in. On stormy nights boxes were
packed and shipped from the stable in our rear. These were sent
directly to Gen. Lee, who told me that he had himself seen to
forwarding them to our boys. Danger and daring kept every heart on
fire. The girls who worked and the boys who watched for a chance to
slip through the lines to Dixie formed a glee club, and their
enthusiasm found vent in such patriotic songs as could be written or
adapted to suit their needs.
“One evening early in June my sister, Miss Jennie Cary, had charge
of the programme, the club ‘meeting at our house. With a young
girl’s eagerness to score a success, she resolved to secure some new
and ardent expression of feelings, by this time wrought up to the
point of explosion. In vain she searched through her stock of words
and airs; nothing seemed intense enough to suit the occasion.
Aroused by her tone of despair I came to the rescue, with the
suggestion that she should adapt the words of ‘Maryland, my
Maryland,’ which had been constantly on my lips since the appearance
of the lyric a few days before in the Baltimore _South_. I produced
the paper and began declaiming the verses. ‘Lauriger Horatius!’ she
exclaimed, and in a flash the immortal song found voice in the
stirring air so perfectly adapted to it.
THE BIRTH OF THE SONG.
“That night, when her voice rang out the stanzas, the refrain rolled
forth from every throat present without pause or preparation, and
the enthusiasm communicated itself with such effect to the crowd
assembled beneath our open windows as to endanger seriously the
liberties of the party.
“A few weeks later it had become impossible to forward the supplies,
of which we had still on hand several large trunksful.
“My brother was about to leave for the army and I concluded to risk
running the blockade with him, taking my sister also, to furnish
more plausible excuse for leaving Baltimore with a very undue amount
of luggage.
“With some difficulty and not a little danger, our party was finally
landed in dead of night on Virginia shores. My sister and I kept
guard over the trunks while my brother scoured the vicinity in
search of a conveyance to Stratford, a few miles distant from our
point of landing, and the birthplace of our friend and kinsman, Gen.
R. E. Lee.
“An old hay wagon, drawn by a very large ox and a very small mule
(guided by ropes and goaded with a hickory pole) was finally
secured, and in this striking conveyance we made our triumphal entry
into the Confederate States.
“Up to this time I had worn on my person a flag bearing the Maryland
coat of arms, and presented by Baltimore women to the Maryland
troops in the Southern army. In addition to the discomfort of this
unwonted article of apparel, I had suffered no small amount of
anxiety lest the paint, which was quite fresh, should sustain some
injury, therefore gladly shook its folds to the breeze the moment we
were safe in Dixie.
THE BIRTH OF THE SONG IN DIXIE.
“My brother cut a pole, we raised the banner aloft, and, perched
upon our trunks, jolted up and down hill to Stratford in the early
dawn of that fair 4th of July, making the Virginia woods ring with
‘Maryland, my Maryland!’
“The story of our adventures soon reached home; the ‘aid and
comfort’ given to the enemy were greatly magnified, and my family
received notification from Washington that we should not be
permitted to return.
“We were living in Virginia in exile, when, soon after Manassas,
Gen. Beauregard, hearing of our work and sufferings for the
Marylanders, who had already done such gallant service in his
command, invited us to visit them at his headquarters, near Fairfax
Courthouse. The fortifications there were in charge of my cousin,
Capt. Sterrett, (U. S. N.,) who received and entertained our party
during the visit.
THE BIRTH OF THE SONG IN THE ARMY.
“The night of our arrival we were serenaded by the band of the
famous Washington Artillery of New Orleans and all the fine voices
within reach. Capt. Sterrett expressed our thanks, and asked if
there were any service we might render in return. ‘Let us hear a
woman’s voice!’ was the cry which arose in response—and standing in
a tent door, under cover of the darkness, my sister sang, ‘Maryland,
my Maryland.’
“This was, I believe, the birth of the song in the army. The refrain
was speedily caught up and tossed back to us from hundreds of rebel
throats. As the last notes died away there surged forth from the
gathering throng a wild shout: ‘We will break her chains! We will
set her free! She shall be free! Three cheers and a tiger for
Maryland!’ And they were given with a will.
“There was not a dry eye in our tent, and they told us next day not
a cap with a rim on it in camp.
“Nothing could have kept Mr. Randall’s verses from living and
growing into a power. To us fell the happy chance of first giving
them voice. In a few weeks ‘My Maryland’ had found its way to the
heart of the whole people and become a great National song.”
The flag which is mentioned by Mrs. Martin is the regimental flag of the
Maryland Line, and was afterwards decorated with a buck-tail captured
from the Pennsylvania regiment of that name. Gen. Ewell issued an order
complimenting the command, and granting it that badge of honor, which
was borne to the end. The flag which went into “Dixie” with the
war-song, it was never captured, never surrendered. It waves here
to-night, tattered and battle-stained, the inspiring emblem and memorial
of heroic deeds without number.
* * * * *
The history of the Maryland regiments is familiar to you, as well as the
history of other commands composed of Marylanders who served in the Army
of Northern Virginia. It has, however, come to my knowledge within the
last week or two that a company of Marylanders served in South Carolina
as early as March, 1861, taking part in the bombardment of Fort Sumter.
They composed Company C of Lucas’s battalion of artillery, and were in
the thick of the fighting until the surrender of Johnson’s army in 1865.
In the defence of Battery Wagner, on Morris Island, the command lost
heavily. Among the Marylanders who fell were Baker, Tucker, Flanigan,
Brass and Marty. Fifteen or twenty of the old members of the company are
still in Baltimore, it is said. Mayhap, some of them honor this
association with their presence to-night. The subjoined letter from the
commanding officer of the battalion to which they belonged will tell you
what is thought of them in South Carolina and by South Carolinians:
SOCIETY HILL, S. C., Jan. 22, 1887.
_Capt. F. W. Dawson, Charleston, S. C._:
MY DEAR SIR—It gives me very great pleasure to testify that Company
“C” was composed of as brave and fearless soldiers as fought for
constitutional government under the “Stars and Bars”—in my opinion.
The following is its brief military history:
Early in 1861 recruiting officers were sent to Baltimore to enlist
recruits for three years to serve in the regular army of the
Confederate States. Two companies were enlisted and placed under the
command of Capts. Lee and Childs. Capt. Lee (Stephen D.) rose to the
rank of lieutenant-general, and Capt. Childs to that of colonel.
Col. Childs is now an officer at the Customhouse in your city. I
found Capt. Lee’s company on Cole’s Island when I took command of
the Stono fortifications on 10th July, 1861.
On the 10th November, 1862, these two companies were consolidated
and attached to Lucas’s battalion heavy artillery, C.S.A., under
Capt. Theodore B. Hayne, and known thereafter as Company “C.” The
company participated in the capture of the gunboat _Isaac P. Smith_
on the 30th January, 1863, in the defence of Battery Wagner and Fort
Sumter, and of Battery Pringle on the Stono. The attack on the last
named fortification lasted ten days and nights, viz: from July 2 to
12, 1864. The attack was made by the monitors _Lehigh_ and
_Montauk_, assisted by the gunboats _Pawnee_, _McDonough_ and
_Racer_, and a mortar boat. In all these engagements Company “C” did
its whole duty. Should the defence of Charleston ever be written,
Company “C” will be entitled to a prominent place in the narrative
of that heroic struggle.
Charleston was evacuated on the 17th of February, 1865, and my
battalion, armed with Springfield muskets, participated in the
battles of Averysboro’ and Bentonville, N.C., on the 16th and 19th
of March. I was wounded at Bentonville and sent to the hospital at
Raleigh, so saw no more of Company “C” or my command. Before my
wound healed the contest was over, and the right of might
established.
The members of Company “C” enjoy the distinction of being _the only
Confederate regulars_, so far as I am informed.
Charles E. Rodman, who died at the Roper Hospital in 1883, was a
member of this company. A shell passed near his spine at Battery
Wagner, and he lived for twenty years in a paralyzed condition. He
acquired, I am told, a good classical education. I saw him whenever
I visited Charleston and witnessed his fortitude. He never betrayed
any impatience with his condition, and was a hero to the end.
Edward Terry, of this company, was a son of the Chevalier de Terri,
of the French army. He enlisted in Baltimore and served bravely with
his company until killed.
At the close of the war the officers were Capt. Theodore B. Hayne
and Lieuts. W. W. Revely, of Virginia, Frank C. Lucas and Langdon
Bowie, Jr.
I would like to be present on the 22d prox. and hear your address,
even though it might stir up the old Rebel feeling! Wishing for you
that success, in all your undertakings, which you so well merit,
believe me to be
Yours most truly,
J. J. LUCAS,
_Late Major com’g Lucas’s Battalion, Heavy Art’y, C. S. A._
There were two regiments of South Carolina regulars, and other States
may have had similar commands, as distinguished from the volunteers and
others who afterwards constituted the Provisional army of the
Confederate States. But the only body of Confederate States regulars of
which I have the record is that which was raised in Baltimore, and which
covered itself with distinction in some of the toughest fights of the
war.
But it was not only in giving soldiers to the Confederacy that Baltimore
was distinguished. Beyond all else it is memorable for the persecution
to which those who sympathized with the South were subjected. In a
letter written from Baltimore, and published in Quebec, there is a
scathing account of the conduct of the Federal officers in your dear
city. It was reproduced afterwards in _Marginalia_, which was published
in Columbia in 1864. The writer of the letter says:
“The horrors practiced by the Lincoln Government upon the people of
that beautiful and refined city, Baltimore, have earned for it the
name of the Warsaw of America.
“Men alone are not the only victims of the accursed tyranny, but
even ladies of rank are similarly situated, their crimes being
receiving letters from absent husbands and fathers, or wearing red
and white ribbons on dresses, or having given charity to the widow
or orphan of some one who died in the Southern army. Against the men
no charges are made, and the only warrant on which they are held is
that their names are inscribed by Mr. Lincoln, or Mr. Seward, upon a
list in the hands of a convicted murderer and burglar.”
“The prime executioner and minister to the vengeance of Lincoln and
Seward is of the most abhorrent stamp, and has inaugurated their
reign of terror in Baltimore only as such a wretch could conceive
it. This man is a pardoned convict, who, after receiving sentence of
death for murder and burglary, and having been known to have
committed six assassinations, was released from prison and made a
jailer, but was dismissed for misconduct. The ruffian has daily
interviews with the President, and returns from Washington with a
fresh list of proscribed victims. Berret takes with him several
escaped thieves, his former pals, and, accompanied by a file of
soldiers, goes forth after midnight to do the bidding of the best
and freest Government in the world, by breaking into the houses of
their victims, dragging them from their beds, and thrusting them,
handcuffed, into the cells of Fortress McHenry. Gen. Howard, an old
gentleman, the candidate for Governor, and his son, Mr. F. Howard,
were taken from their beds, and from the sides of their wives,
between 1 and 2 o’clock in the morning, by Berret and a file of
soldiers, who wounded with their bayonets Mr. F. Howard’s little
son, six years old, and so ill-treated Mrs. Howard that she died on
the Sunday following. Mr. Lincoln thought she was served too well,
and declared that, _the wives and brats of traitors deserved to be
threaded upon red-hot jack chains_. To the suffering children and
wives of his victims he replies to their request to be permitted to
see their parents with a refusal couched in obscene and brutal
language, or with some filthy jest that could not be put upon paper.
Berret, upon Seward’s order, broke into the mansion of a lady of
rank, whose husband is in Europe, and, with his file of soldiers,
pulled her from her bed, without permitting her to dress, or even
putting on her shoes; the fellow forced her to go with him from the
attic to the cellar in her night-gown, whilst he tore up the carpet,
forced the doors and cut to pieces the beds, mattresses, brocaded
chairs, sofas, &c., and turned out every trunk and drawer, leaving
the beautiful residence a total wreck. No reason has been assigned
for this outrage, except that his patron, the President, willed it.
On the following night the house of a venerable gentleman was
forcibly entered and every bed cut to pieces; his three daughters
were pulled out of their beds and subjected to brutal indelicacies
the heart sickens at. The following morning the colonel of these
honorable and gallant defenders of their country, named Wilson, was
taken into custody for various robberies, the property having been
found in his shop in Brooklyn, New York.
“Mr. Faulkner, the late minister from the United States to France,
has been imprisoned in a common felon’s cell, without even straw to
lie upon, leaving his three motherless and unprotected daughters in
a hotel, Mr. Lincoln refusing him permission to send a message to
them, and [his guards] robbing him of all the money he had with him.
Lincoln, when told of the grief of the young ladies, and that their
dresses were wet with tears, ridiculed it and made filthy and
obscene jokes at their expense. Mr. Wallis, president of the Senate,
a man of refined mind, elegantly educated, who held his large
fortune as a trust for every good and benevolent purpose, whose
eloquence and high talent vied with his goodness and his virtues,
has been consigned to a narrow cell with six other gentlemen,
without the commonest convenience that the poorest beggar can
command—torn from his wife and family while suffering from severe
sickness, without a change of linen, and robbed of all his money.
“Mr. Ross Winans, nearly eighty years of age, was taken from his
splendid mansion in the middle of the night, and for a second time
consigned to a cell. This time his crime was giving food daily to
twenty-five hundred poor people. His last release from prison cost
him fifty thousand dollars in bribes. Mrs. Davis, a lady of large
fortune, had fed nearly one thousand poor daily. Mr. Seward
commanded her to desist from doing so; she refused, and published
his command and her letter of refusal. The paper that published it
has been suppressed, the materials of the office carried off and the
editor imprisoned.”
* * * * *
Is not this enough? Well may your historian declare that the remembrance
of “the insults, wrongs and outrages that were daily and hourly
committed upon the people of this State,” still “rouses indignation too
hot for the calmness of impartial history.” Without any bidding of mine
you still remember the petty tyranny and devilish outrages of Schenck
and Fish and Wallace. You remember, too, the cells of Fort McHenry. You
remember the dungeons of Fort Lafayette and Fort Warren. You remember
the insults to your wives and daughters. You remember the arrests, the
midnight searches of your homes. Why should you forget it! There is
nowhere in the obligations of present citizenship any obligation to
consign to charitable oblivion the deeds which stain ineffaceably the
reputation of those who committed them, and which stain still more
darkly the reputation of those, in high authority, by whom the shame and
sin were conceived and directed!
But the women of Baltimore had their revenge, and sweet, indeed, it was.
The more they were harassed and harried by spies and informers, by
sneaks in plain attire, and bullies with sash and sabre, the more ardent
and indomitable were they in ministering to the needs of the Southern
soldiers.
There was no break or pause. The women of Baltimore were untiring in
relieving the wants of the Confederates who fell into the enemy’s hands,
as they were indefatigable in sending through the lines the clothing and
medicines of which our boys in the field were painfully in need. The
Sultan of romance caused the tale or jest that refreshed his jaded sense
to be written in letters of gold and placed in the archives of his
kingdom. How shall be recorded fitly—save in the undying love and
gratitude of generations of those who bless you, and hold you in honor
ineffable—the deeds of those gentle shrinking women who, in our behoof,
were indomitable, invincible. They were mother and sister to the sick
soldier who was weary of breath. They were angels of benediction to
those who were on the brink of the dark-flowing river. Fragile as
flowers, and as beautiful in their holiness, they were so inspired, so
exalted, that it appeared a bagatelle to them to risk fortune, health
and life itself in solace of the bruised and bleeding Confederates.
You should have—the South should have—the country should have, a day of
commemoration of these women and their work. A waiting that, we can
sanctify, with gratitude and devotion, the names of Mrs. B. C. Howard,
Mrs. J. Hanson Thomas, Mrs. Peyton Harrison, Mrs. J. Harman Brown, Mrs.
John S. Gittings, Mrs. Dora Hoffman, Mrs. Robert H. Carr, Mrs. D.
Preston, Mrs. Lurman, Mrs. A. DuBois Egerton, and their associates in
compassionate endeavor and merciful achievement.
* * * * *