Baltimore Belles & Rebels: #9 Baltimore Basket

 

Baltimore Belles & Rebels: #9

Baltimore Basket by Denniele Bohannon

 

Jane Claudia Saunders Johnson 1832-1899

Jane Saunders Johnson was living in Baltimore when the Civil War commenced. As a North Carolina native there was no doubt on which side her loyalties would lie. 

General Bradley Tyler Johnson 1829-1903

Her husband attorney Bradley Tyler Johnson soon raised a pro-Confederate militia “The Maryland Line” in his home town of Frederick. Forty years later, a short biography in the magazine The Confederate Veteran, clarion of the Lost Cause, gives an account of Jane’s “manly” rebellion in Union Maryland. 

To outfit his pro-Southern troops she returned to North Carolina and secured supplies, a mission noted at the time and lauded by the Lost Cause press ever after.

Her mission South was conducted during the convention to determine Maryland’s loyalties, a timely  inspiration to those in favor of Secession.

Following Confederate defeat the Johnsons spent the rest of their lives in Baltimore and Virginia as voice and symbols of the old South.

 

Here a Kentucky newspaper disapproved of Johnson’s 1888 speech that the Reconstruction federal government “is controlled by Confederate soldiers.” "Alas! 'tis true."

 

The Block

Baltimore Basket by Becky Collis

Gross Collection/Dolph Briscoe Collection

Julia Ann Pentz, top dated 1847

A typical Baltimore basket recalls the Baltimore rebel gathering supplies.

International Quilt Museum (2005056.0001)

Top dated 1847

Blocks 1 to 9. Three to go.