Gateway to freedom: In the summer of 1862, many slaves passed through Union lines to freedom

Date published: 2/25/2006

By JOHN HENNESSEY
Chief historian and chief of interpretation of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park

HISTORY IS FULL of big ideas--freedom, democracy, faith, revolution, liberty, war, emancipation.

But rarely in our history books do those big ideas take human form; rarely do they crystallize into an event, a person or a moment we can grasp at the distance of years or decades. And because of that, most people are not much interested in history.

That hard fact is especially tragic in a place like Fredericksburg, which is full of places, people and stories that speak to some of the most important ideas in the history of the world. Washington, Jefferson, religious freedom, war, emancipation, the slave auction block, the Sunken Road, St. George's and a hundred ancient buildings in town. A few of these stories and places stand out as the standard stuff of Fredericksburg's history. But at least one story has been almost entirely overlooked. Here in Fredericksburg, nearly 144 years ago, emancipation and freedom took human form as vividly as any place in America.

Fredericksburg, like America, wrestled with an immense incongruity: the presence of oppression in a land conceived of liberty. This community had known slavery--had come to need slavery--since its founding in 1727. Before the Civil War, about one-third of Fredericksburg's population was enslaved. In Stafford County, the figure was closer to 40 percent. In Spotsylvania and Caroline counties, slaves outnumbered white residents almost 3-2.

Before 1862, emancipation was a distant dream for most Fredericksburg-area slaves. A few gained freedom in the wills of owners who were more charitable in death than they had been in life. Some tried to seize freedom themselves by running away. And in rare cases, slaves rebelled outright, but with the power of government aligned with the slave owner, rebellion invariably ended in death or export for the slaves.

For most slaves, life took on an unwavering rhythm: sow tend harvest. Year after year. Lifetime after lifetime, with little hope for freedom.

That changed with the coming of the Civil War in 1861. For white residents hereabouts, civil war brought a combination of excitement and dread. For area slaves, war brought hope (though also hardship, confusion and sometimes forced relocation to points south). John Washington grew up a slave of Catherine Taliaferro, who lived in what is today the National Bank building on Princess Anne Street, and he remembered the firing on Fort Sumter as "the Death knell of slavery." He rejoiced, "Little did I think that my deliverance was So near at hand."

Fredericksburg's residents knew that the security of slavery was inversely proportional to the nearness of freedom. "It became a well known fact that slaves was daily making their escape into the Union lines," John Washington remembered. And as the spring of 1862 dawned, it became apparent to everyone in Fredericksburg that those Union lines were heading this way.

As word of the approaching Union army reached Fredericksburg, residents white and black grew restless. Betty Herndon Maury, living in what is today known as Haydon Hall on Princess Anne Street, noticed an immediate difference among the slaves--one that stimulated ancient fears in Virginia's white residents. "The Negroes are beginning to be very independent and impertinent," she wrote in her diary. "I am afraid of the lawless Yankee soldiers, but that is nothing to my fear of the Negroes if they should rise against us."

The blue masses arrived opposite Fredericksburg on April 18. The slave John Washington was working that day as a barkeeper at the Shakespeare House Hotel (on the site of what is now 815 Caroline St.). The boom of two cannon announced the Union presence on Stafford Heights. Washington remembered that instantly every white man in the hotel was out of the house, hustling out of town. But, he wrote, "Every Man Servant was out on the house top looking over the River at the yankees[,] for their glistening bayonats could eaziely be Seen." For John Washington, this was one of the greatest moments of his 24-year-old life. "I could not begin to express my new born hopes for I felt already like I Was certain of My freedom now."

The Union army would occupy Fredericksburg peacefully for the next four months. Word of the Union army's arrival--and slaves' chance for freedom--quickly spread to farms and plantations in the counties south of Fredericksburg, and soon slaves took to the roads and trails heading into town. From Caroline, Louisa, Spotsylvania and Orange they came, sometimes as many as 200 in a day. By summer's end, according to the man responsible for running the trains between Falmouth and Aquia Landing, as many as 10,000 slaves passed through Fredericksburg heading to points north. If ever a dot on America's map warranted the label "gateway to freedom," it would be Fredericksburg during the spring and summer of 1862.

John Washington was one of the first to go. Just hours after the Union army arrived, he, his cousin and a free black man headed up the Rappahannock to, as Washington said, "get right oppisite the 'Union Camp,'" and listen to the great number of "Bands" then playing those Tuching tunes, "the Star Spangled Banner," "Red White and Blue," etc.

They went as far as what is today Old Mill Park, just below the Falmouth Bridge. There at the river's edge, Union soldiers called out to them, "Do you want to come over?"

Washington's cousin and friend at first declined, but Washington yelled out, "Yes, I Want to come over."

After Washington arrived on the Falmouth side of the river--probably on what is today Falmouth Beach--curious Union soldiers gathered around him, full of questions. Washington distributed some Confederate newspapers he'd brought, reading material much appreciated by the Yankees. Finally, the conversation turned to slavery. "Do you want to be free?" asked one of the soldiers.

"By all means," Washington answered. Later he recalled, "I did not know What to Say for I Was dumb With Joy and could only thank God and Laugh."

A Union soldier remembered, "They came in singly, by twos, and in squads; sometimes on foot, or in an old cart with a lank mule attached." That soldier had the job of quartering the freshly freed men and women "in the basement of the Court House." "Here," he wrote, "they would sometimes form a large circle of boys and girls, join hands and dance, rocking right to left and sing. They all seemed as happy as though they owned the town."

Another soldier noted that slaves "absolutely swarm in the city" reveling in their new condition. "They are universally struck with surprise at being treated like men instead of chattel, though evincing by their slavish actions that they feel more like chattel than men," he wrote.

The influx of slaves bent on freedom challenged the capacity of the Union army to handle them all, and slaves found that the land of freedom within Union lines was no paradise. That many Union soldiers abhorred the idea of abolition as much as they despised their Confederate enemies added to the struggles of the freed men and women. A local paper noted in June 1862 that hundreds of slaves "are strolling through the town and country unprotected, uncared for, homeless, penniless, and friendless, not knowing where to go, what to do, nor what's to be." Freedom would be an uncertain road indeed.

Some Union soldiers urged former slaves not to migrate north, but to seek paid work within the community--an idea that caused indignation among white residents. Fredericksburg's most famous diarist, Jane Beale, saw this Union meddling as an attempt to punish the white population. "This policy may suit [the Yankees]," she wrote, "but it fixes upon us the incubus of supporting a race who were ordained of a high heaven to support the white man." Beale, whose slaves had not joined the exodus, continued, "I can but hope that no evil influences will be brought to bear upon their minds inducing them to place themselves and me in a more unhappy position than that which we now occupy. "

Despite some soldiers' efforts to convince former slaves to stay in Fredericksburg, most moved northward, passing over the Rappahannock on temporary bridges built by the Union army or occasionally poling their way across on makeshift rafts. Once in Stafford, many "contrabands," as the soldiers called them, took paid jobs as camp attendants in the Union army. That, in turn, gave Union soldiers their first up-close look at those who had lived their lives in bondage. A soldier from New York wrote, "That strong attachment to 'Massa' and 'Misses,' which, I often heard it said at the North, would lead them to cling to their Southern homes and refuse freedom even if it were offered, I haven't yet happened to see. With one voice they breathe longings for a Northern home, eager to turn their backs upon their masters forever, if they can only carry their families with them."

Another Yankee pondered a more common question, "Who will take care of them and how will it be done?"

Most former slaves passing through Fredericksburg would care for and make lives for themselves (no easy thing, for freedom did not mean equality). The Union army shepherded them northward along the line of the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad (some of them walking, some riding the cars) to Aquia Landing. There, virtually every day all summer, steamboats carried loads of freed people to Washington. Some, like John Washington, eventually settled there. In fact, more than 300 former slaves from the African Baptist Church in Fredericksburg (now Shiloh Baptist Church-Old Site) founded a new church in Washington--Shiloh, which still exists, and which still proudly proclaims its Fredericksburg roots.

Others moved to new homes in Ohio (a most common destination) or other Northern states. A few likely returned to the Fredericksburg area after war's end to reunite with family or to simply work in a familiar land.

The exodus of slaves from the Fredericksburg region devastated the local economy. Before the war, Southerners had argued that abolition would ruin the South's economy, and in large measure the war proved them correct, at least in this area. In Stafford County, 60 percent of former slaves left; in Spotsylvania, 30 percent. It would take Spotsylvania nearly 100 years to reclaim its wartime population (about 12,000).

The end of slavery also demolished the fortunes of white families. In Spotsylvania, the value of personal property dropped 92 percent between 1860 and 1870--largely due to the exodus of slaves. James Horace Lacy, the secessionist owner of Chatham and the biggest slaveholder in Stafford County, saw his personal fortune shrink from $180,000 in 1860 (a huge figure for the time) to $2,000 in 1870. Lacy lost more than 100 slaves during the war; the economic impact of that loss was real. The family never recovered, and neither did dozens of others across the region.

The image of slaves passively awaiting emancipation is exploded by the experience of slaves in the Fredericksburg area during the spring and summer of 1862. Thousands of slaves seized freedom for themselves. Their efforts are an eloquent and vivid testament to Lincoln's vision for a new America--a "new birth of freedom." It's one of those big historical ideas taking human form, right in our own backyards--a story of hardship endured, of freedom claimed, a legacy of hope that reverberates still.

Copyright 2006 by The Free Lance-Star

For another article relating to John Washington's escape from slavery in Fredericksburg, click here. For more information on the history of Shiloh Baptist Church (Old Site), where John Washington was a member, click here. For information on Shiloh Baptist Church (Old Site) today, click here.