“Fugitives from Oppression”

One hundred fifty years ago today the Ripley (OH) Bee reported that three families from central North Carolina had recently passed through Ripley, Ohio on their way to Indiana. These families, as the Bee explained, “were escaping from the reign of terror” that existed in the South. The families’ “joy over their deliverance from the thralldom and terrorism of secession was openly expressed.” As the Bee explained, they had been forced to leave in North Carolina “their farms stock and other property, which they could not bring in their wagon.” As they traveled north, the Bee described how “they had as little communication, as possible, with the people on the road and when asked as to their destination, said they were going to Fleming Co., Ky., and sometimes Missouri.” They did not dare admit that their true destination was in Indiana. You can read more about the political situation in North Carolina this time in Daniel W. Crofts’ Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis (1993).