Civil War
When the Civil War began, Johnson organized and equipped a company at his own expense, and he took an active part in forming the 1st Maryland Infantry, CSA, of which he became major and subsequently colonel, meanwhile declining a lieutenant colonel's commission in a Virginia regiment because of his belief that his strongest obligation was to his own state.
By early May 1861 around 500 Marylanders had begun to assemble at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, under Johnson's command, forming 8 companies of Maryland infantry. Johnson preferred not to join the newly forming Virginia regiments, arguing that Marylanders should fight under their own flag. However, other former members of the Maryland militia did not agree; many members of the elite Maryland Guard and Independent Greys from Baltimore went to Richmond, where they were mustered into the service of Virginia.
Read more about this topic: Bradley Tyler Johnson
Famous quotes related to civil war:
“Colonel Shaw
and his bell-cheeked Negro infantry
on St. Gaudens shaking Civil War relief,
propped by a plank splint against the garage’s earthquake.”
—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)
“To the cry of ‘follow Mormons and prairie dogs and find good land,’ Civil War veterans flocked into Nebraska, joining a vast stampede of unemployed workers, tenant farmers, and European immigrants.”
—For the State of Nebraska, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)