Inscription on back: “A veritable incident in the civil war seen by myself at Centerville, on the morning of McClellan’s advance towards Manassas, March 2nd, 1862.” (Manassas Virginia, was a Confederate stronghold until this moment, when simultaneous defeats in Kentucky and Tennessee forced southern troops to begin a voluntary retreat.)

"Once you let the black man get upon his person the brass letter, U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, there is no power on earth that can deny that he has earned the right to citizenship.

--Frederick Douglass, 1863

During the Civil War, John Boston, like many other slaves, took advantage of the nearby presence of Union troops to runaway. But in this case, Boston had run into a Union camp in Maryland, a slave state fighting on the side of the Union. This meant that the regiment from Brooklyn that was providing him sanctuary was defying Union policy. Boston's master was a loyal Unionist in a border state that had sided with the North. Maryland authorities seized this letter, either before or after Boston's wife received it. These officials then demanded that the Union Army return Boston to his owner. It is not known what happened to him. But the courage of John Boston—and that of thousands of others who fled to Union lines to escape slavery—became a tremendous moral example that helped move northern war policy from the goal of union to that of freedom.

My Dear Wife:

It is with great joy that I take this time to let you know where I am. I am now in the safety of the 14th Regiment of Brooklyn. This day I can address you thank God as a free man. I had a little trouble in getting away, but as the Lord led the children of Israel to the land of Canaan so he led me to a land where freedom will reign despite earth and hell. Dear you must make yourself content that I am free from the slaver's lash. And as you have chosen the wise plan of serving the Lord serve him with all my heart. I am with a very nice man and have all that heart can wish. But my dear I can't express my great desire that I have to see you. I trust the time will come when we shall meet again. And if we don't meet on earth we will meet in heaven where Jesus reigns....

John Boston

Give my love to father and mother

CITE THIS DOCUMENT | John Boston, “A Runaway Slave Predicts "Freedom Will Reign",” HERB: Resources for Teachers, accessed September 22, 2013, http://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1762.

Harriet Tubman was among the best known conductors of the Underground Railroad, a network of enslaved people, free blacks, and white sympathizers that assisted thousands of runaway slaves escape north. During the Civil War, Tubman offered her services to the Union army, first as a nurse and cook, and later as an armed scout and spy. In the allegory below, Tubman warns that the Confederacy would never be defeated unless slavery was defeated first. Tubman could not read or write, but her words were written down by Lydia Maria Child, an abolitionist and women's rights activist from Massachusetts. Child met Tubman in a Union camp in Hampton, Virginia where both women volunteered helping "contraband" slaves.

In May, 1861, Union General Benjamin Butler offered military protection to runaway slaves in Virginia, declaring them wartime "contraband." In every region touched by the war, African-American men, women, and children flocked to the protection offered by Union encampments. In exchange they provided manual labor and information about local terrain and Confederate troop movements. By the end of the war, nearly a million ex-slaves were under some kind of federal protection, many in the so-called "contraband camps" established by Union commanders beginning in 1862. Life in the camps was often harsh. Provisions for food, clothing, shelter, and medicine were inadequate, given the number of former slaves who sought refuge and the desperate condition in which many of them arrived.

Question: How many of the people called contrabands, have come under your observation?

Answer: Some 10,000 have come under our control, to be fed in part, and clothed in part, but I cannot speak accurately in regard to the number. This is the rendezvous. They come here from all about, from Richmond and 200 miles off in North Carolina. There was one gang that started from Richmond 23 strong and only 3 got through. . . . .

Q: In your opinion would a change in our policy which would cause them to be treated with fairness, their wages punctually paid and employment furnished them in the army, become known and would it have any effect upon others in slavery?

A: Yes . . . I found hundreds who had left their wives and families behind. I asked them “Why did you come away and leave them there?” and I found they had heard these stories, and wanted to come and see how it was. “I am going back again after my wife” some of them have said “When I have earned a little money” ...and I have had them come to me to borrow money, or to get their pay, if they had earned a month's wages, and to get passes. “I am going for my family” they say. “Are you not afraid to risk it?” “No I know the way” Colored men will help colored men and they will work along the by-paths and get through. . . . they do not feel afraid now. The white people have nearly all gone, the blood hounds are not there now to hunt them and they are not afraid, before they were afraid to stir.

. . . Now that they are getting their eyes open they are coming in. Fifty came this morning from Yorktown who followed Stoneman’s Cavalry when they returned from their raid. . . . they would leave their work in the field as soon as they found the Soldiers were Union men and follow them sometimes without hat or coat. They would take the best horse they could get and everywhere they rode they would take fresh horses, leave the old ones and follow on and so they came in. I have questioned a great many of them and they do not feel much afraid; and there are a great many courageous fellows who have come from long distances in rebeldom. Some men who came here from North Carolina, knew all about the [Emancipation] Proclamation and they started on the belief in it; but they had heard these stories and they wanted to know how it was...

Q: Do I understand you to say that a great many who have escaped have been sent back?

A: Yes Sir, The masters will come in to Suffolk in the day time and with the help of some of the 99th carry off their fugitives and by and by smuggle them across the lines and the soldier will get his $20. or $50...

CHAP. LX. — An Act to confiscate Property used for Insurrectionary Purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That if, during the present or any future insurrection against the Government of the United States, after the President of the United States shall have declared, by proclamation, that the laws of the United States are opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the power vested in the marshals by law, any person or persons, his, her, or their agent, attorney, or employe, shall purchase or acquire, sell or give, any property of whatsoever kind or description, with intent to use or employ the same, or suffer the same to be used or employed, in aiding, abetting, or promoting such insurrection or resistance to the laws, or any person or persons engaged therein ; or if any person or persons, being the owner or owners of any such property, shall knowingly use or employ, or consent to the use or employment of the same as aforesaid, all such property is hereby declared to be lawful subject of prize and capture wherever found ; and it shall be the duty of the President of the United States to cause the same to be seized, confiscated, and condemned.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That whenever hereafter, during the present insurrection against the Government of the United States, any person claimed to be held to labor or service under the law of any State, shall be required or permitted by the person to whom such labor or service is claimed to be due, or by the lawful agent of such person, to take up arms against the United States, or shall be required or permitted by the person to whom such labor or service is claimed to be due, or his lawful agent, to work or to be employed in or upon any fort, navy yard, dock, armory, ship, entrenchment, or in any military or naval service whatsoever, against the Government and lawful authority of the United States, then, and in every such case, the person to whom such labor or service is claimed to be due shall forfeit his claim to such labor, any law of the State or of the United States to the contrary notwithstanding. And whenever thereafter the person claiming such labor or service shall seek to enforce his claim, it shall be a full and sufficient answer to such claim that the person whose service or labor is claimed had been employed in hostile service against the Government of the United States, contrary to the provisions of this act.

APPROVED, August 6, 1861.

CITE THIS DOCUMENT | Lambert Hollis, “Lincoln in Richmond,” HERB: Resources for Teachers, accessed September 22, 2013, http://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1214.

Resolution on Compensated Emancipation

April 10, 1862

Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the United States ought to cooperate with any State which may adopt gradual abolishment of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid, to be used by such State in its discretion, to compensate for the inconveniences, public and private, produced by such change of system.

APPROVED, April 10, 1862.

CHAP. CXCV.— An Act to suppress Insurrection, to punish Treason and Rebellion, to seize and confiscate the Property of Rebels, and for other Purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That every person who shall hereafter commit the crime of treason against the United States, and shall be adjudged guilty thereof, shall suffer death, and all his slaves, if any, shall be declared and made free; or, at the discretion of the court, he shall be imprisoned for not less than five years and fined not less than ten thousand dollars, and all his slaves, if any, shall be declared and made free; said fine shall be levied and collected on any or all of the property, real and personal, excluding slaves, of which the said person so convicted was the owner at the time of committing the said crime, any sale or conveyance to the contrary notwithstanding.

2. In what sense is this a "humanitarian" and "political" issue?

Holland, to what extent do you think Harriet Tubman might have influenced Lincoln in making the Civil War a war to end slavery? (LK)

In my article, Lincoln's letter response to Horace Greeley, Lincoln is trying to fulfill his duties as president of America not president of Negro America, similarly to Barack Obama. He makes it known that his most important task is saving The Union and he would be very content if that resulted in the end of slavery or the continuation of slavery.

For example, what might it mean for Private Hubbard Pryor in 1864? Or the family depicted in Eastman Johnson's painting,

Ride to Liberty? Or for General Butler, or the "contraband" in his camp?

1. What is happening to the price of slaves at this point in the war, and what does this suggest about the relative strength of the institution?

2. What other factors might affect the "standard price" of slaves in the South in mid-1863?

New York Times, August 22, 1863

MARKET PRICE OF SLAVES.

-- Slaves command a higher price in Kentucky, taking gold as the standard of value, than in any other of the Southern States. In Missouri they are sold at from forty dollars to four hundred, according to age, quality, and especially according to place. In Tennessee they cannot be said to be sold at all. In Maryland the negroes upon an estate were lately sold, and fetched an average price of $18 a head. In the farther States of the Southern Confederacy we frequently see reports of negro sales, and we occasionally see boasts from rebel newspapers as to the high prices the slaves bring, notwithstanding the war and the collapse of Southern industry. We notice in the Savannah Republican of the 5th, a report of a negro sale in that city, at which, we are told, high prices prevailed, and at which two girls of 18 years of age were sold for about $2,500 apiece, two matured boys for about the same price, a man of 45 for $1,850, and at woman of 23, with her child of 5, for $3,950. Twenty-five hundred dollars, then, may be taken as the standard price of first-class slaves in the Confederacy; but when it is remembered that this is in Confederate money, which is worth less than one-twelfth its face in gold, it will be seen that the real price, by this standard, is only about $200. In Kentucky, on the other hand, though there is but little buying or selling of slave stock going on, we understand that negroes are still held at from seven to twelve hundred dollars apiece.