Civil War Quilts: Atlanta Garden #12: Union Circle

Wednesday, December 13, 2023

Atlanta Garden #12: Union Circle

Atlanta Garden #12: Union Circle by Denniele Bohannon

Our last block Union Circle remembers the Union patriots in Atlanta, the Berrys, Markhams, Healeys and others.

Right after Christmas, 1864 Carrie's father was punished for his pro-Union activities when the Confederates in control again arrested and imprisoned him for three weeks in Macon. But once he returned home unharmed and undrafted, the drama in the Berry household decreased and Carrie's journal came to an end.

Carrie's last diary entries in January, 1865 reflect a return to a normal school girl's life.

(Did she ever learn to spell?)

William Markham 1811-1890

After war's end Uncle William Markham became a trusted Union source for information about who'd been a Unionist and who a persecutor of Union sympathizers. In Secret Yankees Thomas G. Dyer quotes an Intelligencer article during Sherman's occupation in which Uncle Markham is described as a "mean, vindictive man...well-known in Atlanta to be traitorous to the cause of the South," and, as Dyer notes, the editor implied "that Markham should be murdered." Yet, Markham's money and perhaps his judicious approach to post-war political discussion made him a respected member of Atlanta's elite.

Atlanta in 1895, revived after Civil War destruction, progress that

made wealthy citizens of the Berry/Markham/Healeys.

Union Circle by Becky Brown

William Macon Crumley (1847-1921)

Ten years after the war Carrie married Confederate veteran William Crumley who had joined the Confederate Cobb's Legion when he was 14.

William's father, a Methodist minister, married them in 1875. Crumley was an active member of the United Confederate Veterans group in the post war years and wealthy in his own right.

Maxwell Rufus Berry (1823-1909)

Carrie's father at his death was estimated to be worth over $700,000, mostly in Atlanta real estate.

From M.R. Berry's 1909 obituary

Jacob's Pharmacy stills stands in a building Carrie inherited on Peachtree Street, a historic

site due to its association with Coca-Cola.

March, 1921

This business news published just a few weeks before Carrie died.

Union Circle by Becky Collis

The 1900 census finds Carrie married to Crumley, a prosperous hardware merchant with three boys and a girl ages 23 to 8. Lena Banks, a 21-year-old Black servant, also resided with them at 40 Forrest Avenue. Note the columns with numbers 6 and 4. That census asked how many children a woman had given birth to and how many were living at the time. Carrie and William had lost two.

Robbie, their eldest, lived until 1953.

This house at 18 Inman Circle was their last home

where they lived with him.

Fortunately Carrie and her husband did not live to see the death of son Dr. William

Gregg Crumley in 1924 six years after returning from serving in World War I.

Carrie died at 66 in May, 1921 from what her doctor diagnosed as

cancer of the gall bladder. Her husband died less than six months later.

October 5, 1921, Atlanta Constitution

Union Circle by Jeanne Arnieri

We certainly wish we knew more about Carrie Berry Crumley as an adult. How did father Maxwell, a Unionist, get along with her husband, the boy Confederate soldier? What stories did she tell her children about her childhood in a battlefield?

Atlanta's Whitehall Street in the early 20th century

Carrie would have been in her sixties in the teens. Did she dress in the conservative wear thought appropriate for "the elderly?" When one sees a photo like this portraying a determined woman (carrying her own package for heaven's sake!) one wishes one could grab her arm and demand in polite fashion: "Tell me about the war."

The Block

Our only block with curved piecing, this last block is based on a common fan design, using the pattern structure of BlockBase #2001. As it's a new pattern we can give it a new name Union Circle