Freedom seekers Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory, and James Townsend reach Union lines at Fort Monroe, Virginia on May 23, where Gen. Benjamin Butler refuses to return them to their Confederate slaveholder. The US War Department supports Butler’s claim that the freedom seekers can be confiscated as “contraband of war,” setting in motion the wartime alliance between enslaved people and the US Army.
1861 political cartoon on “contrabands” (Library of Congress)
1861 Confiscation Act, August 6, 1861, FULL TEXT via The Freedmen and Southern Society Project, University of Maryland
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.
Illustration of freedom seekers working for the US Army under the First Confiscation Act at Fort Monroe, November 1861 (House Divided Project)
Date(s): escaped 1862
Location(s): Port Royal, South Carolina
Outcome: Freedom
Summary:
Prince Rivers (House Divided Project)
An enslaved carriage driver in Port Royal, South Carolina, Prince Rivers was incredibly resourceful, learning how to read and write and even organizing a local mutual aid society for local African Americans. After Union forces occupied many of the islands around Port Royal, Rivers escaped and also liberated his wife and two children from another plantation. Rivers found work behind US Army lines, and eventually Gen. David Hunter provided Rivers and his family with documentary proof of their freedom on August 1, 1862. Rivers quickly established himself as an effective recruiter, giving speeches to urge other Black men into the US ranks. After the war, Rivers won a seat in the South Carolina legislature, served as mayor and leading judge in Hamburg, South Carolina, and as a major general in South Carolina’s National Guard. Rising white supremacist violence ultimately drove Rivers from South Carolina politics. The freedman eventually admitted to bribery (possibly under coercion) and left office in 1877. Rivers ended up driving carriages again to make a living, the same job he held while enslaved.
Second Confiscation Act receives President Lincoln’s signature on July 17. The new legislation goes much further than its predecessor (August 1861), empowering the president to direct US armies to liberate any enslaved people held by disloyal slaveholders as “captives of war.”
[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]
Emancipation Proclamation is issued by President Lincoln on January 1, declaring free all enslaved people held in the Confederate states and authorizing the enlistment of Black soldiers. The sweeping directive, however, exempts Union-occupied Tennessee and parts of Union-occupied Virginia and Louisiana, designating them as under control of civil laws and not war measures.
[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]
House of Representatives approves the 13th Amendment 119 to 56 on January 31, sending it to the states for ratification.
[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]
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