Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 29.djvu/50

 36 Southern Historical Society Papers.

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 Chroni- cler 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 per- son 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 Compa- nies A and B, at the Point of Rocks, escorted by Capt. Wilson C. Nicholas, of Company G, and Lieutenant George M. E. Shearer, of Company A, and tried to get to Richmond by way of Leesburg and Alexandria. Finding the way barred by Federal troops who had occupied Alexandria that very day, she pushed on by way of Harper's Ferry, and reached Raleigh the night of the 27th. The next morning she made her application to Governor Ellis and the Council of State, stating to them the necessitous condition of the Marylanders, who were without arms, clothes, blankets, or the common necessities of life.

" The Governor and Council immediately ordered five hundred Mississippi rifles to be turned over to her with ten thousand cart- ridges and necessary equipments.

"The Constitutional Convention of North Carolina, being then in session at Raleigh, a public meeting was called at night in the Capitol under the auspices of the Hon. Weldon N. Edwards, Pres- ident of the Convention, Chief-Justice Thomas Ruffin, her father, Judge Saunders, and other distinguished North Carolinians.

" It was presided over by Ex-Governor David S. Reid, and at- tended by the members of the Convention.

"Amid great enthusiam the cause of the Marylanders was es-