Few women had the good fortune in the war between the States to have such opportunities for good as the subject of this memoir, and no one ever improved them as she did.
She was of distinguished ancestry.
Her father,
Romulus M. Saunders, of
North Carolina, was a member of Congress from 1819 to 1844; from 1845-49,
Minister Plenipotentiary to
Madrid, authorized to offer $100,000,000 for the
Island of Cuba.
He had really nominated
James K. Polk for the Presidency by devising and securing the adoption of the two-third rule at the Democratic National Convention in
Baltimore in 1844.
A majority of the delegates had come instructed to vote for
Van Buren.
But, in the meantime,
Van Buren had taken position in opposition to the annexation of
Texas, and the
Southern Van Buren man wanted him defeated, hence the two-third rule, which required two-thirds of all the members to make the nomination.
The mission to
Spain, then the most important diplomatic position in the
Government, was a recognition of his service to the party, to the cause of
Texas, and to the
President elect.
The mother of
Mrs. Johnson was
Anna Hayes Johnson, daughter of
the Hon. William Johnson, of
South Carolina,
Justice of the Supreme Court of the
United States, appointed by
Mr. Jefferson in 1804, and who married the brilliant young member of Congress from
North Carolina when she was quite a young woman.
She was a splendidly handsome, brilliant, and intellectual woman,
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with great artistic talent, and a painter far beyond mediocre amateur ability.
Her grandfather,
William Johnson, of
Charleston, was a patriot of prominence and force, and was deported by
Sir Henry Clinton to
St. Augustine with other distinguished patriots of
South Carolina.
During the siege of
Charleston, his wife,
Sarah Johnson,
nee Nightingale, used to quilt her peticoats with cartridges, which she thus conveyed to her husband in the trenches.
With such traditions, the great-granddaughter of
Sarah Nightingale Johnson and
William Johnson, soldier and exile, could only be imbued with patriotism, with courage, with sentiment.
She spent the four years of her father's residence in
Spain with him and her mother, and entered society there by her presentation at Court.
There she became intimate with
Eugenie di Montijo,
Countess of
Teba, who afterwards became Empress of the
French.
The attachment between the young girls was such that on the marriage of the
Countess to the
Emperor she sent her portrait to her American friend, which, though only a print, was and is, considered the best likeness of her ever made.
Mrs. Johnson was a success at the
Court of Isabella, the
Catholic, and of
Louis Napoleon,
Emperor of the
French in
Paris, where she and her sister and mother spent the winter.
In December, 1849,
General Saunders was recalled and came home.
In 1851,
Miss Saunders was married to
Bradley T. Johnson, who had just been admitted to the Bar, and to whom she had been engaged for the preceding six years.
She was not 18, he just 21, and they went to live in
Frederick, Maryland, where he rapidly acquired a good position at the Bar.
In 1857, in the great struggle to save the
State from the Know-Nothing faction, he was placed at the head of the
State ticket as the
Democratic candidate for Comptroller of the Treasury, but was defeated by the
Plug Ugly and Blood Tub Clubs, and fraudulent votes, and stuffed ballot-boxes, of the city of
Baltimore.
In 1859, he was made the head of the
Democratic organization of the
State, as
Chairman of the
Democratic State Committee, and was a delegate from the
State to the
Charleston National Convention of 1860.
There he acted, spoke and voted with the extreme Southern wing of the Democratic party, and when the convention adjourned to
Baltimore, joined with a majority of the
Maryland Delegation, in
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withdrawing from the convention, and uniting with the
States Rights members, North and South, in the Democratic National Convention, which nominated
Breckinridge and
Lane.
The members who remained as the
National Democratic Convention nominated
Douglas and
Johnston.
The result is history.
In all this exciting time
Mrs Johnson was always with her husband, heart and soul, and sustaining his every act, with soul stirring sympathy and chivalric courage.
When it became clear that the issue of arms was to be made and tried, her husband, with her constant support, enlisted a company of boys at
Frederick, which he armed and clothed, very poorly—but the best that could be done—at his own expense, and prepared to lead them to
Virginia, she entirely consenting and assisting.
She had a fine house, well furnished, with every comfort and convenience.
She left that just as it was, to the care of
S. Teakle Willis,
John Hanson Thomas,
Ross Winans,
John C. Brune, and the rest of the
Baltimore Delegation in the legislature, which was in
Frederick, in session.
On May 7, 1861, she went to
Chestnut Hill, Va., the residence of a friend,
Mrs. Mason, and the next day her husband followed her with his company—the
Frederick Volunteers—to
Point of Rocks.
There, in a few days, he was joined by a company from
Baltimore,
Capt. Edelin, and other companies were rapidly collected at
Harper's Ferry.
They were all mustered into the service of the
Confederate States on May 21-22, 1861, the object being to form them as a nucleus for the
Maryland Line, which was to be the representative of
Maryland in the Southern Confederacy and to win for their State a place in the new government.
But a crisis soon confronted the Marylanders.
Of the 500 men at the
Point of Rocks and
Harper's Ferry, Company A, from
Frederick only were armed, and that only with
Hall's Carbines, the original antiquated and useless breechloader, long since discarded by the army of the United States.
The men had nothing, no arms, no clothes, no tents, no camp equipage, axes, hatchets, skillets nor camp kettles.
They could draw rations, but did not know how to cook them, even if they had had the utensils.
Utter and entire disorganization faced them.
On every side were cordial invitations to join
Virginia,
North Carolina,
South Carolina or Mississippi Companies.
But the men all knew that the disappearance of that battallion from the army would mean the death of
Maryland's hopes to join
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the
Confederacy, as well as their own justification, in taking arms against their native State.
They held and believed that their mother State had been betrayed by treachery, and was then bound and manacled, hand and foot, by the ‘
Vis Major’ of the
United States, and they were performing a pious duty in organizing with arms to redeem her. But they had no arms, nor any one to whom to apply, and they faced the horrors of disintegration and extermination.
Hence forward let the
Chronicler Scharf tell the story.
In his third volume of the
History of Maryland, he says:
In this trying exigency Mrs. Bradley T. Johnson volunteered to go through the country to North Carolina, her native State, and there appeal to her countrymen for assistance.
She, as the daughter of Hon. R. M. Saunders of that State, formerly minister to Spain, was amply qualified by graces of person and mind and the force of her will, to accomplish an enterprise which required the daring gallantry of a man with the persuasive power and perseverance of a woman.
Accordingly, on the 24th of May she left the camps of Companies A and B, at the
