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Updated: May 7, 2025
When the news came that we were needed, there was none so glad as I to leave teaching contrabands, the new work I had taken up, and go to nurse "our boys," as my dusky flock so proudly called the wounded of the Fifty-Fourth.
Feeling decidedly more interest in the black man than in the white, yet remembering the Doctor's hint of his being "high and haughty," I glanced furtively at him as I scattered chloride of lime about the room to purify the air, and settled matters to suit myself. I had seen many contrabands, but never one so attractive as this.
The relation of the war to the institution of slavery has been touched upon in describing several incidents which occurred during 1861, namely, the designation of fugitive slaves as "contraband," the Crittenden resolution and the confiscation act of the special session of Congress, the issuing and revocation of Frémont's proclamation, and various orders relating to contrabands in Union camps.
Hence our picket lines are doubly strong and vigilant, while every means is resorted to to ascertain the position, strength, and intention of our wily foe. Frequently "contrabands" feel their way through the enemy's pickets under cover of the night, and through the tangled brushwood which abounds, and reach our lines safely.
It may be well also to add here, as belonging to this period of doubtfulness touching the status of escaped Slaves, the following communication sent by Secretary Seward to General McClellan, touching "Contrabands" in the District of Columbia: "DEPARTMENT OF STATE, "WASHINGTON, December 4, 1861.
Each cabin was pierced for two or more windows; the beds were simply shelves or berths; a rough fireplace of stones and clay communicated with the wooden chimney; and the floors were in most cases damp and bare. Streets, fancifully designated, divided the settlement irregularly; but the tenements were now all deserted save one, where I found a whole family of "contrabands" or fugitive slaves.
Major-General Wool, at Fortress Monroe, where he had succeeded General Butler, likewise issued a Special Order on the subject of Contrabands, as follows: "HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF VIRGINIA, "FORT MONROE, October 14, 1861.
I remember of a summer's afternoon seeing a young married woman, perhaps twenty-five years old, seated on a door-step with her primer before her, trying to make progress. In natural tact and the faculty of getting a livelihood the contrabands are inferior to the Yankees, but quite equal to the mass of the Southern population.
Army chaplains found here new and fruitful fields; "superintendents of contrabands" multiplied, and some attempt at systematic work was made by enlisting the able-bodied men and giving work to the others. Then came the Freedmen's Aid societies, born of the touching appeals from Pierce and from these other centres of distress.
Their number was increased some half dozen by fugitives from the back-country, who came in and asked to be allowed to serve on the intrenchments. The contrabands worked well, and in no instance was it found necessary for the superintendents to urge them. There was a public opinion among them against idleness, which answered for discipline.
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