Slavery

All Civil War Battles, Zero Carbon Travel

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The precursor to the Civil War was John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry arsenal in 1859. Lee, Jackson & Jeb Stuart were all there in uniform, before they turned against our country. Douglass & Tubman were not in the raid, although they were involved. Booth arrived to witness Brown’s execution. The government may have quickly restored order in town, but across the country people divided into abolitionists or secessionists. Lincoln, arguing against slavery, was elected in 1860, and southern states began to secede to protect slavery.

The Confederacy raised an army and attacked Fort Sumter in April of 1861. That same month, Union soldiers were attacked by Confederate sympathizers in Baltimore, leading Clara Barton to begin her service as a nurse. In May three escaped slaves were granted protection as ‘contraband’ at Fort Monroe in northern Virginia. Lincoln sent troops south where they were incompetently led into battle at Manassas in Virginia in July. The Confederates also won at Wilson’s Creek but were unable to take Missouri. The Union won at Carnifex Ferry in September, causing West Virginia to split from Virginia and become a state in 1863. In November, the Union Navy took Port Royal South Carolina, liberating 10,000 slaves, many forming the first African American regiment there one year later. 

In January 1862 the Union won at Mill Springs Kentucky, followed the next month by Grant taking Fort Donelson on the strategic Cumberland River in northwest Tennessee. In March the Union won again at Pea Ridge in Arkansas and at Glorietta Pass in New Mexico, supported by Fort Union cavalry. In Tennessee in April, Shiloh (above) was a costly victory, followed by naval victories at Fort Pulaski blockading Savannah Georgia and the capture of New Orleans in Louisiana, where three more African American regiments would form within a year. In May the Union took Yorktown in Virginia, but in June the Union failed in its approach to Richmond. Then in August another loss at Manassas again. The Confederates marched into Maryland, but lost at Antietam in September. In December, the Union failed again in Virginia at Fredricksburg.

On the 1st of January 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation was read first with immediate effect to the SC 1st Volunteers, freeing them, their families and friends forever. Many more emancipated and free African American men would join the Union army at bases like Camp Nelson in Kentucky, Fort Scott in Kansas, and New Bedford and Boston in Massachusetts. That same winter the Union won at Stones River in Tennessee but lost at Chancellorsville in Virginia in spring. On June 2nd, Union spy Harriet Tubman led 150 African American soldiers to free 700 slaves at Combahee Ferry. Lee marched north again, losing decisively in July at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. Grant concluded his siege of Vicksburg the next day, July 4th. In the fall the Union advanced to the border of Tennessee and Georgia at Chattanooga and Chickamauga.

In 1864 the Union took northern Virginia with extensive fighting in Spotsylvania county. Slowly Grant was advancing towards Richmond, at one point outmaneuvering Lee at Petersburg and beginning a long siege of both cities. Meanwhile, Sherman was advancing in Mississippi, despite delays at Brices Cross Roads and Tupelo. In Georgia, Sherman was stopped at Kennesaw Mountain in July, before resuming his march to the sea. With the Confederate capital under siege, Lee ordered a sneak attack on the Union capital in July, crucially delayed at Monocacy in Maryland, after which snipers fired at Fort Stevens in DC. In August, Farragut took the last major southern port of Mobile Bay in Alabama. And in October, the Union defended the Shenandoah Valley at Cedar Creek in Virginia.

In the spring of 1865, after a months-long siege, Lee abandoned both Petersburg and Richmond, retreated and then surrendered in Appomattox in April. Andersonville was liberated in May. The CSS Shenandoah, which circumnavigated the globe during the war seizing African American crews from whaling ships, surrendered in Liverpool England in November, the last act of the war.

Road to Abolition

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The American movement to abolish slavery began before the Constitution was written. In 1780, Pennsylvania enacted a law gradually abolishing slavery. When he was in Philadelphia as President, George Washington tried to evade this law by rotating his slaves back to Virginia, although one, Oney Judge, escaped and lived out her life in New Hampshire, despite Washington’s efforts to reclaim her. By 1783 the Supreme Court of Massachusetts declared slavery unconstitutional in the state, abolishing it and making the state a focal point for abolition for the next 80 years. Thomas Jefferson called slavery immoral, a threat to the nation and contrary to the laws of nature, but he didn’t free his own slaves and edited his own anti-slavery views out of the final draft of the Constitution to placate other slaveowners, like Charles Pinckney. Before John Dickinson signed the Constitution in 1787, he freed his slaves unconditionally in 1786. 

The Northwest Territories, now the northeastern states of the Midwest, were free in 1787 before they became states, and by 1817, all but one of the states north of the Mason-Dixon Line abolished slavery either immediately or over time. Delaware was the exception, where slavery persisted despite being viewed as abhorrent by Quakers, such as Thomas Garrett, who ultimately helped liberate over 2,500 slaves. The Liberator, a weekly newspaper begun in 1831 in Boston by William Garrison, spread throughout the free states, making Abolition a national issue and sparking direct action, including liberating slaves south of the Mason-Dixon. 

In 1838 Frederick Douglass escaped slavery in Maryland by train through Delaware to Philadelphia, and quickly he married in New York and settled in New Bedford. That same September, self-educated Douglass went to Nantucket to hear his favorite publisher Garrison speak and was asked to speak himself, giving his first-hand views of slavery. 20 years later, Douglass had written two best-selling autobiographies, toured the North, traveled to London, and was giving fiery speeches to abolitionists at Boston’s African Meeting House.

Fellow escaped Maryland slave Harriet Tubman was in the audience, listening to Douglass speak and raising funds there for the Underground Railroad, when she wasn’t liberating slaves in Maryland herself or with her friend Garrett. The Underground Railroad also helped slaves escape up the Mississippi River to New Philadelphia—an Illinois town founded in 1836 by a freed slave—before escaping the reach of the Fugitive Slave Act by crossing the Canadian border. Few of the stops on the Underground Railroad still exist, but I believe Mammoth Cave may have been one, as the enslaved tour guide had rare freedom to organize both tours for visiting Abolitionists and temporary lodgings for “servants”. 

Abolition was also fought in the courts. In 1839, Africans took over the slave ship Amistad, killed the captain and cook and demanded the crew sail back to Africa. Caught off of New York, their murder trial pitted racist President Van Buren against abolitionist John Quincy Adams. The Supreme Court found that the Africans had been kidnapped, had acted within their legal rights to avoid slavery, and were free. The courts were struggling with slavery, where one’s race could change legally from state to state, depending on one’s ancestry. In 1846 a court found a Florida woman, once a slave from Senegal, to be legally Spanish, allowing her to inherit her owner/husband’s plantation. The legislative fight over slavery in new states broke into armed confIict in Kansas in 1854. In 1857, the Supreme Court ruled against a slave named Dred Scott who had sued for freedom in St Louis, arguing that he had become free while in Illinois. Abolitionists, enraged, funded John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry. 

Secession did not stop slaves from trying to self-emancipate. Every Union border outpost or advance into Confederate territory became a magnet for escaping slaves. In 1861, on the day Virginia seceded, three slaves turned up at Fort Monroe and were given protection by the Union Army, which officially labeled them ‘contraband’ meaning ‘illegal to possess’. When the Confederates evacuated Port Royal in late 1861, 10,000 slaves were effectively freed, and Harriet Tubman soon arrived to expand her network of spies and liberators. One of the first Union naval victories happened in 1862, when enslaved pilot Robert Smalls commandeered a Confederate ship, sailed past Fort Sumter at night with his friends & families to freedom, and gave the ship to the Union Navy in nearby Port Royal. 

Abraham Lincoln, whose experiences as a boy and as an anti-slavery advocate had prepared him to be President at this crucial time, issued the Emancipation Proclamation on New Years Day 1863—first read under the Emancipation Oaks at Port Royal South Carolina (see photo above)—, both freeing slaves and allowing the formation of African American regiments to fight for freedom, first at Port Royal in South Carolina, then in Massachusetts, Kansas and Kentucky. In 1865, the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery was proposed, passed, signed and ratified, abolishing slavery in the United States, almost. 

In 1866 the ‘Five Civilized Tribes’ in Oklahoma changed their laws to recognize that slavery was no longer legal, making the law legally effective nationally that June. While emancipation reached Texas on Juneteenth 1865, the state officially ratified the 13th Amendment in 1870. Delaware rejected the 13th Amendment in 1865, and they finally ratified it in 1901. Kentucky ratified the 13th Amendment in 1976. And Mississippi, the last state, ratified the 13th Amendment in 1995, but neglected to inform the National Archives to make it official, until 2013. 

Traveling to all the national park sites related to Abolitionism has been deeply moving, and I especially recommend the Boston African American Historic Site, the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in upstate New York, and most of all, Reconstruction Era National Historical Park near Beaufort, South Carolina. Next week I will cover the Civil War. 

Appomattox Court House National Historical Park

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Lincoln wanted “malice toward none” and for the Confederates to return their allegiance to the Union, so he let them all go home, with passes, with their horses and even with Union provisions, as long as they gave up their guns. After his son reported to his father about Lee’s surrender at Appomattox in Virginia, Lincoln went to the theater, believing that his charity would prevent further bloodshed, and that night, only five days after the scene above took place, the President was assassinated.

Contrary to the explanation given here, the Confederacy did not rise in response to “northern aggression”. Fort Sumter was not an act of northern aggression. Secession was not northern aggression. The south insisted that the Fugitive Slave Act apply nationally; so much for states’ rights. Even the pamphlet that attempts to give reasons other than slavery for why the Confederates fought, reveals that it was still about slavery: “submit to Abolitionists”, “lose property”, and “our negroes”. And after the insurrection was defeated and federal troops left, the Klan arose and African Americans have been systematically denied their rights for more than 150 years. No honor in that.

The site is beautifully restored to its 1865 appearance, and there are talented living history actors who bemoan how difficult it will be now that they have to plant and harvest their own crops. Not sure how they can get every fence post to look as it did, but somehow still find it difficult to present the main cause of the war plainly. The film is excellent and explains all the details of the surrender, such as that the signing did not occur in the courthouse but in a nearby house also open to the public. Visiting such a superbly preserved and restored place is a wonderful way to appreciate the scene of such an important historic moment.

Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County Battlefields Memorial National Military Park

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While this is the longest park name, they could have gone with “Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House Battlefields Memorial National Military Park”. This is the largest military park covering 70 miles and three years of battles. Outside historic Fredericksburg, there are few buildings to see, including the Old Salem Church (another battle site), Ellwood (where Jackson’s left arm is buried) and the Stonewall Jackson Shrine. There are miles of fields, forests, trenches, historic trails, foundations, key military positions, markers, and memorials, with well over 40 tour stops, and there were visitors at every battlefield even until dusk.

Fredericksburg is roughly halfway between DC and Richmond, the Confederate Capital, which explains the numerous, bloody battles fought in the area. Spotsylvania is the name of the county. Fredericksburg was a Union disaster, under General Burnside, who ordered repeated attacks up the steep hills held by entrenched Confederates, but unlike Antietam all attacks failed and ended in retreat. At Chancellorsville—a one house village— the next year, General Hooker had executed an end run around Lee’s forces in the hills above Fredericksburg, but Stonewall Jackson executed an end run around Hooker’s forces. Jackson was killed, but the Union retreated in another defeat. Lee, confident after many victories, went north to Gettysburg. Another year later, General Grant returned to the Wilderness and Court House of Spotsylvania, finally making progress towards Richmond.

Chatham House, the Union HQ where both Clara Barton and Walt Whitman worked in the hospital, has a commanding view of Fredericksburg above, where Union artillery supported the failed assault. Washington, Jefferson and Madison were among the visitors to the wealthy plantation home that predates the country. Lincoln met with some of his generals here during the war. In the 1920’s the owners built a magnificent formal garden, which makes a nice break from the gruesome battlefields. Fredericksburg also has a historic walking tour, with some buildings that predate the Revolution, monuments to founding fathers and a slave auction block.

There is a common factual error in too many park films on the Civil War: that slavery only became an issue when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. This conceit defies all plain fact. Lincoln was anti-slavery from childhood and argued against it his entire life, including all his campaigns and in every office he held. The primary political division in the country pre Civil War was about slavery. Most northern states were not only anti-slavery but had worked on ending slavery since the Revolution. The Abolitionist movement began in Europe in the 1770s and was active openly in the north and in secret in the south before the Civil War. Every southern state that seceded, cited preservation of slavery as the reason. Lincoln’s hesitancy in making it official policy at the outset was due to the few northern border states that were still in the gradual process of ending slavery. Lincoln might have accepted a negotiated settlement early in the war, but the Confederates rejected it, being willing to fight to the death to keep their fellow humans in eternal bondage.

General Lee is quoted at the visitor center in Fredericksburg as expressing his sympathy for the white refugees fleeing south, but he apparently had zero regard for the far greater number of black refugees fleeing north. The Fredericksburg park film expresses much anguish for the destruction of pianos and other household goods, but only briefly mentions that 1/4 of the town were slaves when the Union troops arrived to liberate them. Tens of thousands of slaves fled Virginia through here during the war, crossing the Rappahannock River in Fredericksburg and getting passes to travel to refugee camps at Fort Monroe and near DC, seeking the safety of the Union. The lost property that the Confederate newspapers bewailed was largely human property.

Those who hold these Confederate generals in high esteem need to ask themselves why their heroes cared so much about the white residents and not at all about the black residents? It’s possible to admire Von Manstein for his strategies and Rommel for his tactics, but it’s not possible to ignore the 6 million Jews their government killed in the Holocaust. The Civil War ended 158 years ago. Moral judgements must be made about the cause of the war and the motives of the participants. The Confederate cause was evil, and we must not make heroes of those who served the cause of slavery. Stonewall Jackson was not a saint, so he does not deserve a shrine on national park land.

Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park

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The park service Belle Grove site is near the north entrance to Shenandoah National Park, near the West Virginia border. Cedar Creek feeds into the Shenandoah River nearby, and this large agricultural valley in Virginia was home to James Madison’s brother in law, who had up to 100 slaves or so working his grain fields at any given time. Nelly Madison Hite named the plantation house Belle Grove Manor after her birthplace Belle Grove Plantation which is on the Rappahannock River near Fredericksburg, also in Virginia, and that’s now a historic B&B. James Madison was also born there and died at his Montpelier estate, which is near Charlottesville Virginia.

In 1864 Confederate troops routed Union soldiers in a surprise foggy morning attack. In the afternoon, General Sheridan arrived with more troops and won the day. The fighting approached the front porch above and left a couple bullet holes still visible. General Grant ordered many such farms in the valley burned to break the rebellion, causing hardship and starvation. Of course, the crops had all been grown by slave labor, so in the long run the owners’ hardship was finally needing to pay their workers.

The ‘struggle of southern women to be able to feed their families’ was due to a combination of factors: blockaded ports, burned plantations and escaped slave labor—the last factor perhaps the largest and longest lasting. Even poor whites benefited from cheap food, clothing & tobacco grown by slaves, which needs to be remembered when reading arguments that ‘most white southerners did not own slaves and were fighting to preserve a way of life’. Even poor whites knew that they would lose social status and have to start doing hard labor themselves if slavery ended. The end of slavery meant the end of that morally reprehensible way of life for all whites in the south, and the men who enlisted all knew it and chose to fight to preserve slavery.

There are reenactments, trenches and fields to explore, some monuments, a partner tour of Belle Grove Manor above, and a small partner museum with Civil War memorabilia across the street. The park is within the broader Shenandoah Valley Battlefields historic district, so there’s plenty to see in the area too. The basement of the manor has an interesting exhibit reconstructing the kitchen and showing artifacts of life in the time of slavery. If you’re interested in the defeated, there’s a picture of a dying Confederate general being comforted by G. A. Custer and also Coronation Tea in the gift shop.

Fort Monroe National Monument

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The English sited a fort here in their Virginia colony at the mouth of the James River to protect Jamestown and the deep water entrance to the Chesapeake known as Hampton Roads, and now the Norfolk Navy Base sits across the river. The current fort is the largest masonry fort in the US, and although it was not directly involved in any battles, the Monitor v Merrimack battle was witnessed from its lighthouse, the oldest on the Chesapeake. Lincoln planned the capture of Norfolk here. Confederate leader Jefferson Davis was imprisoned here, decades after Lt Davis had been involved in sending captured Chief Black Hawk to prison here. Robert E. Lee improved the moat system above. Edgar Allan Poe served here (and later returned to recite his poetry).

But the most important history here began in 1619, when the first Africans were brought here by British privateers who stole them from the Spanish, and they were immediately put to work by the English colonists beginning the abomination of slavery in the American colonies. The first African American child, William Tucker, was born here in 1624. (First, unless you include Spanish St Augustine Florida, where there were 16th century slaves, as well as slaves in the Coronado and DeSoto expeditions).

The day Virginia seceded, three slaves, Baker, Townsend & Mallory, escaped and sought refuge here. Their owner sent a Confederate officer to claim his property. Without any official policy, the Union General Butler decided that the three men were illegal property or ‘contraband’ and refused to return them. Butler supported educating, training and enlisting them. This ‘contraband decision’ was widely published in newspapers and became Union policy until Emancipation. Many other escaped slaves similarly sought protection at this and other Union forts and camps, and communities with contraband schools began. Nearby Hampton University began as one of those schools, attended by 16 year old Booker T. Washington in 1872, fully 253 years after slavery started here in this country.

Monticello

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Jefferson’s entryway is like a science museum. The wind vane connects to a display on the ceiling outside, the clock connects to a series of weights that display the day of the week. The antlers on the wall show American megafauna, and the Native American artifacts represent various tribes. There’s a concave mirror which reflects your image upside down, and there are various maps, as one would expect from the sponsor of Lewis & Clark’s expedition. The rest of the house also includes various gadgets and experimental devices, so he apparently enjoyed being seen as a wizard.

To call the house symmetrical is an understatement. The other side also has columns, well, just look at the back of a nickel. There are long wing-like patios connecting outbuildings, a tunnel running the transverse length underneath, and a winding garden path. Monticello means ‘little hill’ in Italian, but the views are impressive. Jefferson used to peer down through his telescope at the University of Virginia, which he also designed and founded and which is also part of this World Heritage site.

Jefferson is unpopular today, due to his treatment of slaves, and today’s Monticello does an excellent job of describing the hard life of the hundreds of enslaved people who worked here. The house tour includes the slave tour, and the docents are knowledgeable and answer a whole range of difficult questions. DNA testing revealed many secrets of Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemings—a child when it began—, and much more research has been done to unearth fascinating and desperate stories of slavery and a few of liberation. Jefferson knew slavery was wrong, and he had argued against it as a younger man. Some of his friends and colleagues freed their slaves and urged Jefferson to do the same, but with only a few exceptions, such as his own biracial children, he refused even in his will.

It is not wise to condemn the man entirely, however. If you believe that all men are created equal, that we all deserve freedom of religion without government interference, and many other American ideals, then you agree with Jefferson, who enshrined those ideals in our nation’s founding. We should hate the man for his racism and for perpetuating slavery instead of helping end it, but we should also admire his genius, as an architect, a revolutionary, and a renaissance man. Jefferson knew that the most memorable characters of the ancient classical ages all had tragic flaws that often destroyed them in the end, but that’s why we remember their stories—both good and evil—, to learn from them.

Hampton National Historic Site

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Before the Revolution, Charles Ridgely grew his fortune making iron and exporting it to Europe for finished goods. His land had all the essential elements for this business, nearby Baltimore had the port, he purchased his own merchant fleet, and even received tax incentives from the British government. He diversified into other businesses, growing corn, fruit, and bottling casks of port to sell in the city. And he didn’t pay most of his workers.

When the war began, Ridgely sold iron and supplies to the Americans. His craftsmen were skilled, and he was likely the largest enterprise in the country at the time. For cheap, he purchased the lands confiscated from Loyalists. But he didn’t adhere to the ideals of the American Revolution. In fact, he built the largest, most purely British Georgian mansion above, while the country was just finishing fighting its War of Independence from the British King George.

His nephew inherited the home in 1790 and served in Congress and as Maryland Governor, arguing for peace with Britain. By the 1820s, Hampton was 25,000 acres and included cattle, horse racing and marble quarries. For six generations, the Ridgely family held on to this property and protected the family wealth. The work was done by over 300 slaves at any one time, and the plantation was known to be one of the state’s largest and hardest driving plantation, where other slaves feared to be sold as punishment.

The ranger was unable to point to any contributions made to society by the Ridgely family over 200 years, but she did have much evidence that they enjoyed an aristocratic life and drank copiously. They had a huge ice cave dug into the hill, filled in winter, so they could enjoy ice cream during the summer. (They lived in their Baltimore house during the winter). The four main rooms have been marvelously restored to different time periods, Colonial, the Governor (photo), pre Civil War and post Civil War, each with elaborate displays that would make European nobility blush. The hall and rooms are filled with large portraits of the vain slaveholders, none of whom made the choice to see their slaves as equally human.

The overseers house, farm buildings and some slave quarters have been restored as well, and all can be seen from the front step, far down the hill. The park service has done admirable research on the life of the slaves, and I learned how generations of young Ridgely children were taught to maintain the system of control. Slavery impacts every aspect of humanity, and the stories here are told with some meticulous details to evoke hundreds of years of cruelty. The house was donated to the park service by a wealthy foundation in part to preserve the fine art collection.

Thomas Stone National Historic Site

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The site is open in limited seasons, on limited days of the week, for limited hours, with limited staff, with limited tours. Despite the sign on the visitor center door saying that someone should be there and that there was another tour scheduled, the place was locked and nobody showed up. The house is off limits without a tour, so, the placard above is all I have. Thomas Stone voted for and signed the Declaration of Independence. He typically owned around two dozen slaves, and his Uncle was a slave trader who owned the ship that brought Kunta Kinte to Maryland. After the death of Stone’s wife, he became ill in 1787 and declined to participate in the Constitutional Convention, dying shortly thereafter. His house burned in 1977, and the earliest photo for restoration was 1902. “Haber de venture” means ‘dwelling of the winds’.

George Washington Birthplace National Monument

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George’s great grandfather owned 10,000 acres of Virginia tidewater. The three places Washington lived before he became a national figure were all managed by private foundations, but now the park service runs his birthplace where he lived until he was 3 or 4. There’s a small site in town that covers his boyhood. And then there’s the very popular Mount Vernon site, with living history and the beautiful original home restored to how it looked when George & Martha lived there. The tours at Mt Vernon are in depth and excellent, but this site is quiet and peaceful.

Both George & Martha inherited slaves before their marriage, and many of them had families together at Mount Vernon. The slaves they owned when they died (mostly George’s) were freed around 1800, but Martha’s slaves reverted to a male heir and wound up at Arlington House, where they worked for Robert E. Lee, until freed by that heir’s will in 1862. If only George could have used his office to free all the slaves, he could have saved Martha’s slaves from broken families and generations of more misery and also averted Civil War. One descendent of Martha’s slaves nevertheless saved important artifacts of George Washington’s life when the Union took Arlington House.

George’s birth site doesn’t get as many visitors as Mount Vernon upriver, but it is beautiful and educational. The old park film is still good, and the hiking includes a lovely 1 mile nature trail near the shore. The buildings are from the wrong era, so I skipped the inside tour. The obelisk above was moved to the entrance at a time when they realized that they didn’t know exactly where George was born on the site, but the park service has now found the foundation of the house that was here at the time of his birth. They’re still deciding how to present or restore it, but in the meantime enjoy viewing the fields, farm animals and the Potomac.