{"id":3868,"date":"2023-10-28T15:00:05","date_gmt":"2023-10-28T15:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/?p=3868"},"modified":"2026-01-07T03:06:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T03:06:41","slug":"the-1864-camp-nelson-stampede-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/the-1864-camp-nelson-stampede-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The 1864 Camp Nelson Stampede: Part 1: Initial Stampede"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is the first of three posts on the Camp Nelson Stampede:\u00a0 see also Enslaved Women (Part 2)<\/a> and Freedom and Community (Part 3)<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

DATELINE: JUNE 4, 1864, CAMP NELSON, KY<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Military<\/a>

Black US soldiers at Camp Nelson (Explore KY History<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWithin a few days the negroes of Kentucky have become impressed with the idea that the road to freedom lies through military service, and there has been a stampede from the farms to the recruiting offices.\u201d \u00a0[1]\u00a0 So reported the Cincinnati <\/span>Commercial<\/i> on June 4, 1864. The federal government had finally opened enlistment–and thus a pathway to freedom–to enslaved men in the Bluegrass State. However, there was a catch: enslaved men first needed to secure their slaveholders’ consent to enlist. Throughout the spring and early summer of 1864, enslaved Kentuckians refused to take no for an answer; they were determined to enlist and gain their freedom, with or without their slaveholders’ approval. In just a matter of weeks, the initial stampede of enslaved men to recruiting offices and Camp Nelson pressured the US army into opening its ranks to all enslaved Kentuckians.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

STAMPEDE CONTEXT<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unlike many pre-war group escapes in Kentucky, the \u201cstampede\u201d to Camp Nelson was not a single group of freedom seekers with one shared starting point; rather it consisted of a succession of group escapes originating from throughout the counties surrounding Camp Nelson. Collectively, those group escapes amounted to one of the largest wartime \u201cstampedes\u201d\u2014thousands of enslaved men, women, and children escaped to Camp Nelson starting in the summer of 1864 and continuing through the summer of 1865.<\/p>\n

Right from the beginning, newspapers employed the term \u201cstampede\u201d to describe freedom seekers\u2019 rush to Camp Nelson.\u00a0 <\/span>The Cincinnati Commercial <\/i>described \u201ca stampede from the farms to the recruiting offices.\u201d Papers in Cleveland and San Francisco reprinted the Commercial<\/i>\u2019s original story under new headlines that described the \u201cExodus of Negroes from Kentucky.\u201d [2]<\/p>\n

Newspapers continued to use the term \u201cstampede\u201d to describe occasional upticks in the number of freedom seekers heading to Camp Nelson. In April 1865, a correspondent from Danville, Kentucky commented that \u201cthe stampede of negroes from this region to Camp Nelson has received a new impulse within a few days\u201d due to rumors that the camp might close its doors. [3]\u00a0Several months later in June 1865, a correspondent for the Cincinnati Commercial<\/i> described another \u201cstampede\u201d after enslaved Kentuckians eavesdropped on a local politician\u2019s speech insisting that Kentucky could maintain slavery for another seven years. \u201c<\/span>There happened to be quite a number of darkies listening to him, and the idea of seven years more of slavery was so distasteful to them that they concluded immediately to take the short cut to freedom via the army,\u201d the journalist wryly reported. \u201cAccordingly, they not only went themselves, but got all their neighbors to join them in a stampede for the nearest recruiting station.\u201d [4]<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

MAIN NARRATIVE<\/strong><\/p>\n

The US army originally established Camp Nelson in 1863 as a supply depot, not as a center for African American recruitment. T<\/span>he camp was located in Kentucky, a loyal slave state which continued to fiercely resist federal antislavery policies. In hopes of appealing to white Kentuckians, President Abraham Lincoln had exempted the Bluegrass State from his Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863. The Lincoln administration also held off enlisting enslaved Kentuckians into the US army, even though by mid-1863 the federal government had already begun recruiting enslaved men as soldiers in other border slave states such as Maryland and Missouri. [5]<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally in April 1864, the US army\u2019s manpower needs led federal officials to authorize limited Black recruitment in Kentucky. US general Stephen Burbridge sought to soften the blow by making several key concessions to Kentucky slaveholders. First, the federal government would compensate slaveholders $300 for each enslaved recruit. Secondly, prospective recruits needed to secure their slaveholder’s permission before they could enlist. Third, the US army would not send recruiters out onto plantations to enlist enslaved men, but would require enslaved recruits to journey to recruiting offices run by provost marshals (the army’s military police) where they could enlist. [6]<\/span><\/p>\n

Enslaved men were determined to enlist, <\/span>with or without their slaveholder’s blessing. <\/span>As US officials quickly recognized, it proved almost impossible to determine on the spot whether slaveholders had actually given consent. <\/span>At least some provosts went ahead and enlisted enslaved men without their slaveholders\u2019 approval. In May 1864, a group of 15 enslaved men presented themselves for enlistment at the provost marshal\u2019s office in Stanford, Kentucky. Even though only five of the recruits had their slaveholders\u2019 consent to enlist, the local provost marshal forwarded all 15 men to Camp Nelson. [7] More often, US officials demanded hard proof of slaveholders\u2019 consent. The provost marshal at Berea, Kentucky only agreed to enlist enslaved men who came to his recruiting office accompanied by their slaveholder. If he \u201clet the slave[s] come and enlist at their own option,\u201d the provost marshal explained, \u201call [the] slave men in the county would come.\u201d [8]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Turning away prospective recruits left enslaved men vulnerable to violent reprisals by slaveholders and white Kentuckians, who were determined to stop Black enlistment at all costs. On May 10, a group of 17 enslaved men traveled from Green County more than 20 miles to Lebanon, where provost marshal James Fidler \u201ckindly received\u201d them, but explained that he would need written proof that their slaveholders had consented to them enlisting. Fidler supplied each man with \u201cnotes to their owners asking that the negroes be permitted to enlist.\u201d Fidler\u2019s attempt to follow the fine print of federal policy ended in tragedy. White Kentuckians \u201cfollowed these black men from town, seized them and whipped them most unmercifully with cow-hides.\u201d Declaring that \u201cnegro enlistment should not take place in Lebanon,\u201d local whites threatened the provost marshal \u201cwith a mob\u201d should he attempt to enlist any Black recruits. [9]<\/span><\/p>\n

Slaveholders also stepped up violence towards enslaved women, both in retaliation for their husbands enlisting and also to dissuade them from any designs they might have on joining their husbands at Camp Nelson. \u201cMy master beat me over the head with an axe handle,\u201d enslaved Kentuckian Clarissa Burdett later testified, \u201csaying as he did so that he beat me for letting [husband] Ely Burdett go off\u2026. He bruised my head so that I could not lay it against a pillow without the greatest pain.\u201d [10] Whenever opportunity presented itself, enslaved women gathered their children and slipped away to Camp Nelson, where they hoped to reunite their families.<\/p>\n

Enslaved Kentuckians who withstood the violence and reached Camp Nelson met with a disappointing reception from the US army. When 250 enslaved men \u201cthirsting for freedom\u201d departed Danville, Kentucky on May 23 bound for Camp Nelson, students at Centre College \u201cassailed them with stones and the contents of revolvers.\u201d The men braved the assault and made it the sixteen miles to Camp Nelson later that same afternoon, only to be turned away by camp commandant Col. A.H. Clark, who claimed he \u201chad no authority\u201d to muster them into the army. [11]<\/span><\/p>\n

Clark was even less sympathetic to the many enslaved women who had risked it all to accompany their husbands to Camp Nelson. Clark ordered his subordinates to exclude enslaved women from camp and threaten that \u201cif they return, the lash awaits them.\u201d [12] Despite US officials\u2019 best efforts to keep them out, enslaved women kept coming back, determined never return to slavery and intent on keeping their families together. \u201cThere is not one among two hundred that want to go,\u201d conceded one US army official, who acknowledged that enslaved women believe \u201cthat they will be killed by their masters if they return.\u201d [13]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

AFTERMATH<\/strong><\/p>\n

By June 1864, rampant violence against enslaved recruits prompted federal officials to open up <\/span>enlistment to all enslaved men in Kentucky. \u201cIt became absolutely necessary for the protection of the slave to enlist him without the consent of the owner,\u201d explained provost marshal James Fidler in Lebanon, Kentucky. [14] Federal officials back in Washington agreed. “In view of the cruelties practiced in the State of Kentucky by owners of slaves towards recruits,\u201d assistant adjutant general C.W. Foster suggested that the US army should “accept and enlist any slave who may present himself for enlistment,” regardless of whether their slaveholder approved. In mid-June, US officials in Kentucky announced that the army would now accept the services of any enslaved men willing to enlist, regardless of whether their slaveholder approved. [15]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"black<\/a>

Freedom seeker Peter Bruner (Bruner, A Slave’s Adventures Toward Freedom, 1918<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n

Following the change in federal policy, growing numbers of enslaved Kentuckians streamed into Camp Nelson. In early July 1864, Peter Bruner escaped from Richmond, Kentucky and “came upon sixteen colored fellows who were on their way to Camp Nelson and of course I did not get lonesome.” Bruner and his fellow freedom seekers took advantage of the new federal policy allowing them to enlist without their enslavers’ consent. “When I had run off before and wanted to go in the army and fight they said that they did not want any darkies, that this was a white man’s war,” Bruner recalled. However, when Bruner and the 16 other escapees arrived at Camp Nelson, military officials mustered Bruner into the newly formed 12th U.S. Colored Heavy Artillery. [16]<\/p>\n

Camp Nelson quickly became an oasis for Black freedom in slaveholding Kentucky. “See how much better off we are now dan we was four years ago,” one unidentified freedom seeker-turned-soldier declared the following summer in the presence of a London abolitionist. “It used to be five hundred miles to git to Canada from Lexington, but now it\u2019s only eighteen miles! Camp Nelson<\/i> is now our <\/i>Canada.” [17]<\/p>\n

The reworked federal policy helped transform the camp into a major site of military emancipation, but still did not clarify the status of enslaved women and children who crowded into Camp Nelson alongside their husbands and fathers. Despite the US army’s best efforts to keep them out, enslaved women would continue to head to Camp Nelson in an effort to keep their families together. (Continue reading part 2<\/a>)<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FURTHER READING<\/strong><\/p>\n

A robust body of scholarship has highlighted Camp Nelson’s importance as a redoubt for Black emancipation in slaveholding Kentucky.\u00a0A good starting place is Richard Sears’s Camp Nelson, Kentucky\u00a0<\/em>(2002), an edited collection of primary sources covering the camp’s existence. The Freedmen and Southern Society Project’s Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation <\/em>series 2 (The Black Military Experience), also features primary sources related to Black recruitment and Black family life at Camp Nelson. [18]<\/span><\/p>\n

Historians have also explored the experiences of freedom seekers heading to Camp Nelson, as well as the site’s continuing significance to public memory of the Civil War. Amy Taylor’s Embattled Freedom<\/em> (2018) foregrounds the experiences of freedom seeker Gabriel Burdett, his “sister-in-law” Clarissa, and their extended family as they sought liberation at Camp Nelson. [19] W. Stephen McBride argues in “Camp Nelson and Kentucky’s Civil War Memory” (2013) that the Camp Nelson National Monument remains an important site in shaping public memory of the Civil War. By highlighting the crucial contributions Black men and women made to US victory, Camp Nelson gives lie to Lost Cause narratives which downplay the centrality of emancipation. [20]<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1] Cincinnati Commercial<\/em>, June 4, 1864, quoted in <\/span>“Kentucky Negro Exodus,” Cleveland (OH) Daily Herald<\/i>, June 6, 1864, p. 4.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[2] “<\/a>Kentucky Negro Exodus,” Cleveland (OH) Daily Herald<\/i>, June 6, 1864, p. 4<\/a>; “Exodus of Negroes From Kentucky,” San Francisco (CA) Daily Evening Bulletin<\/i>, June 29, 1864, p. 3<\/a>; <\/span>A July 1865 referred back to the \u201cstampede of slaves from surrounding country\u201d who \u201ccame here in May and June of \u201964 by scores.\u201d See “Refugee Home in Kentucky,” Worcester (MA) Spy<\/i>, July 21, 1865, p. 2.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

[3] “Stampede of Negroes,” Louisville (KY) Daily Journal<\/i>, April 28, 1865, p. 1.<\/span><\/p>\n

[4] Cincinnati Commercial <\/em>quoted in,\u00a0<\/a>“How Dinah Got a Companion for Life,” New Orleans (LA) Times<\/i>, June 19, 1865, p. 3<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

[5] Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation<\/em> (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), ser. 2 (The Black Military Experience), vol. 1, 193; Amy Murrell Taylor, Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps<\/em> (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018), 186-187.<\/span><\/p>\n

[6] Freedom<\/em>,\u00a0ser. 2, vol. 1, 193; Amy Murrell Taylor, Embattled Freedom: Journeys through the Civil War’s Slave Refugee Camps<\/em> (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018), 186-187.<\/span><\/p>\n

[7] Robert E. Barron to the Provost Marshal at Camp Nelson, Kentucky, May 27, 1864, Stanford, Ky., RG 393, pt. 4, entry 1660, vol. 237DKy, pp. 417-418, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC.<\/a><\/p>\n

[8] John G. Fee to Brother Jocelyn, May 11, 1864, Berea, Ky., in Richard D. Sears,\u00a0Camp Nelson, Kentucky: A Civil War History<\/em> (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 2002), 56-57.<\/span><\/p>\n

[9] Freedom<\/em>, ser. 2, vol. 1, 257.<\/span><\/p>\n

[10] Taylor, Embattled Freedom<\/em>, 188.<\/p>\n

[11] Report of Thomas Butler, in Sears, Camp Nelson<\/em>, 58.<\/span><\/p>\n

[12] “Slave-Hunting in Kentucky,” National Anti-Slavery Standard<\/em>, June 18, 1864, in Sears, Camp Nelson<\/em>, 63-65.<\/p>\n

[13] Hanaford to McQueen, May 26, 1864, in\u00a0 Sears, Camp Nelson<\/em>, 60; Hanaford to Dickson, July 6, 1864, in Sears, Camp Nelson<\/em>, 94.<\/p>\n

[14] Freedom<\/em>, ser. 2, vol. 1, 257.<\/span><\/p>\n

[15] \u00a0The War of the\u00a0Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies\u00a0<\/em>(Washington: Government Printing Office, 1891), ser. 3, vol. 4, 422, [WEB<\/a>]; <\/span><\/span>Lorenzo Thomas, Special Order No. 20, June 13, 1864, cited in Taylor, Embattled Freedom<\/em>, 187.<\/span><\/p>\n

[16] Peter Bruner, A Slave\u2019s Adventures Toward Freedom: Not Fiction, but the True Story of a Struggle<\/i> (Oxford, OH: n.p., 1918), 42-43 [WEB]<\/span><\/a> <\/b><\/p>\n

[17] [Joseph Simpson], Letters from Joseph Simpson, Manchester<\/i> (London: Friends\u2019 Central Committee for the Relief of the Emancipated Negroes, 1865), 23.<\/p>\n

[18] Sears, Camp Nelson<\/em>; Freedom<\/em> ser. 2 (The Black Military Experience).<\/p>\n

[19] Taylor, Embattled Freedom<\/em>, 174-208, 221-230.<\/p>\n

[20] W. Stephen McBride, \u201cCamp Nelson and Kentucky\u2019s Civil War Memory,\u201d Historical Archaeology<\/i> 47, no. 3 (2013): 69\u201380.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is the first of three posts on the Camp Nelson Stampede:\u00a0 see also Enslaved Women (Part 2) and Freedom and Community (Part 3) DATELINE: JUNE 4, 1864, CAMP NELSON, KY \u201cWithin a few days the negroes of Kentucky have become impressed with the idea that the road to freedom lies through military service, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":130,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21281],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ky-narratives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3868"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4185,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3868\/revisions\/4185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}