well, our next speaker is, dr.

cassandra newby alexander, who is the endowed professor of virginia black history and culture, and also the emeritus director of the joseph jenkins roberts center for african diaspora studies. all that at norfolk state university in virginia. her publications, virginia waterways and the underground railroad, and an african-america in history of the civil war in hampton roads. and you already know i'm a fan because i cited her book, my talk earlier today and. i'm really, really pleased she's here today with us to share her expertise with a lecture entitled on the precipice of change african-americans and the

civil war in hampton roads. so let's give her a warm welcome to virginia tech. thank you for being here. thank you so much. and i feel very privileged to follow some incredibly extraordinarily talented speakers at this particular. so i'm just going to jump right in. i am notorious for talking a lot because talking about my favorite subject, subject that often doesn't get its due. i may 23rd, 1861, three enslaved men and you see their pictures here. shepard mallory frank baker and. james townsend threw caution to the wind, desperate to stay close to their families in hampton. the men decided that it was now or never in the middle of the night.

the men crept away from their encamped meant in swords point, which is now where the norfolk naval station is located. and they stole a boat and made their way across the hampton roads. and for those of you who don't know the, hampton roads is a deep channel wll the major waterways flow out into the chesapeake bay, which then flows into the atlantic ocean. so i call it the hub, the superhighway. and that is why for so many people who don't this history about why we call our region the hampton roads, it has everything to do with that waterway and the waterway ways of influence, the economy influence the history and have made hampton roads central to the story i'm about to tell. so for these three men, anyhow, i swear in this tiny little boat and i wanted to show you this picture, even though it came

william still's book on the underground railroad. haton roads looksike andat the what a tiny ship in the hampton roads it would looke. and and hopefully you won't get knocked over in artilar vessel and this is very typical of a small sking way across the hampton roads. so these men knew that the possibility of drowning was high, but they were determined in their quest to reach fort monroe and hopefully to freedom, despite the dangers. once they arrived on shore, the men began looking for the union forces. they knew they were there. finally in the wee hours of the morning on may 24th, the men encountered a union reconnaissance group leading the soldiers know their intent.

the men were interrogated and then taken to major general benjamin butler, who had just arrived two days prior to their arrival at fort monroe. for further examination and i. i encourage you to take the time and i'm just going to go back to this original picture. i encourage you to take the time to visit fort monroe, because right there. they're in the house headquarters, number one, that still exists. and the people can show you where that room is. that this eventred. so what these three men did was important in extorting area. they explained that their owner had made to withdraw the forces from the area and to take all the enslaved laborers who had been conscripted to build fortifications over there. as soon as point for the confederacy with them.

one account mentioned that the enslavement site owner, colonel c.l. mallow of hampton, planned to ship out all the enslaved men to florida. while other accounts claimed that the strategy was to their forces in north carolina. way the intent was to take them far from home. their families. and for these men that was unthinkable. frank baker was the oldest of the three men he was born around 1819 in north carolina. and so at this time in 1861, he was 43 years old. he was married to a woman named mary baker. and they had four children, two sons, henry and dempsey and two daughters. easter a fnces. and i know that with an enslaved person was not seen as legal. they saw it as impoand

legal. and, of course many of these individuals, once the amer missionaries association began sending ministers to the hampton area in september 1860, 100 brits lined up to be official, only married as far as they were concerned with under the auspices of a religious organization. the next person, james townsend, he was about 36 years old, born in about 1825. and the reason i say about is because many of these people did knowhectual year that they were born. many of these individuals were t wi theirriginal owner. in fact, most enslaved people had, on average, four owners in their lifetime. and that'hey were lucky. somehow more. and that meant that they were cast saintly, being som

mily or from their extended family members. so to know their exact age was always a guessing game for them. he, like all the others, was a resident of hampton, which was in elizabeth city county, and he later married a woman by the name of maria townsend. they had two children. the youngest was shepherd mallory. he was only about 20 years old at the time of their escape. and it's unclear yet whether he was married to his wife, his future wife or current wife. the woman by the name of fanny. but what is clear that the three of them saw themselves as a member, as members of the hampton community. and they did not want to leave. and they were willing to face death rather than leave the area and leave their families. so when these three enslaved men escaped the confederate battle lines and it sanctuary at the

union held fort monroe on of 1861, major general benjamin butler was faced with a that otherommaers had previously encountered. should he follow militar protocol and return these fugitives slaves to their owner, or should refu thereby violate the law? the official response should have been for butler to refuse sanctuary to the escaping slaves, as had other union officials in occupied regions throughout south. the fugitive clause of the constitution and the fugitive slave acts, the most recent being passed in 1850, compelled butler to return all runaways slaves to their proven owner. however this was war, and the three men who presented themselves to butler explained that the of the united states were using them to fight against

the united states. butler of course, caught hold of that argument. you know, butler was an attorney. he was also a democrat, which meant that he was in favor of not ending slavery, but his concern for the victory of the union took precedence over his personal political views and what he decided to do would change the face of america. and definitely this. and he decided to declare these men contraband of war and he would later write his memoirs that he was he had difficulty with that decision. now whether or that was true, that was how wanted to be remembered. he said it concerned him to label these individuals who are already seen as property, as not human, to call them contrabands would continue that pretty

peculiar line of thinking that they were an object. they were a thing. they weren't human beings because you didn't typically call human being contraband. but it could kind of go right in between that law and make what he did not in violation of the law, but a military necessity. and that's kind of what lincoln did with the emancipation proclamation, making it a military necessity. so what he decided do was to seize on this idea of confiscating these these able bodied enslaved men for military purposes and for the purpose of helping the fort. so that it was inoffensive to the border states. it would be a blow to the confederacy, and it would not the constitution, excepting these freedom and i call them freedom.

freedom in line with the idea of the underground railroad. they didn't just stop up as soon as the civil war began. rather, these men, just like people before them, had been seeking their freedom. any any way that they could. and so this continued that trajectory of looking at people as freedom seekers, not just looking at them as objects, not just dismissing them, simply fugitive slaves, which is also way of taking away their humanity, but recognizing their agency. human beings. now by accepting them, of course, this meant that this could put intentionally, politically change the landscape for the united states government. and butler concerned that he you

know, that that he was doing right thing but wanted to feel validated to send a letter not only to his commanding offir but to president abraham lincoln. and he crickets absotely no. response. lincoln, of course, was pragmatist. he was concerned about the border states an he just wante to see this right to. see what would happen. he also still hoped, though, he knew it wasn't true, but he hoped that this would be a war. of course, he had people like frederick douglass hammering at him even in these earlier months saying, you know, this is a war about slavery. and he was like, yeah, i know, but you know, there are the concerns that have i want to maintain the survival of the country at this time. so lincoln, though, he recognized the slavery was at the heart of the civil war, and

this constitutional debate states rights. he decided to tread carefully and remain and remain silent for the immediate moment. however, butler knew this would transform the war. and he wrote about this even some of his letters. he also had hoped that it would continue to just be men coming to the fore. but he was mistake taken because the next day there were three people who arrived from york county. and then the following there were about eight people who arrived from gloucester. and then the next day there were tens of people. then the next day there were hundreds. and then pretty soon there was flood of people arriving, all with the same idea. and i just want to pause here for a minute to say, when i first was reading about that, my thought was, wow, you know, people had an incredible

communication system that here you had three people arrive and, they were accepted and they must have communicated that information. but when i started doing some more digging, i realized, no, it wasn't that the communication was there at that time? the reality was that the fort was and with the movement of troops, the opportunity was also there for so many of these enslaved people to make their way. and most of them made their way, especially in these early weeks aboard. ship. and that shouldn't be since the overwhelming majority of watermen aspire actually in the hampton roads area of virginia were african-american. they knew the waterways. they knew how to navigate. and many of them, many of the plants portions they were on had flat boats or other type of

small vessels. and they were accustomed to navigating those vessels. and many of arrived right there at the fort by water. but pretty soon as the union army began to make its way further out of just the confines of the fort and out further into hampton, as as in waller county, which is now newport news, and then eventually over to norfolk, more and more people started coming to the fort because as many of the confederates were fleeing. well, those individuals and this is a famous drawing that was done. and so if you visit fort monroe, you actually have to go h that needle, i call it the needle don't go through it a bus unless you knoto drive a bus, go through it in a small vehicle, you can because it is a narrow opening.

they renamed that pat freedom way. and this picture is what began this idea of seeing fort monroe as freedoms fortress because these individuals were accepted. if y imagiere was no way this fort could accommodate thousandeople coming in and living on the grounds of the for the fort had one big problem and that was water. they were surrounded by water, but they had very little fresh water. in fact, that would continue to be an issue for the fort, even through the 1880s and nineties. and so they could not accommodate a lot of people. in fact, many of the soldiers who were being sent down to fort monroe were resettled in what is now on the grounds of the veterans hospital and part of the hampton university.

and they named that camp hamilton because the fort itself was on an island and there and the water, the fresh was limited. and so many of these people were coming in, had to be resettled somewhere else. but that wasn't the primary of the military. and here you have this dilemma. so many those individuals who are arriving, they some of them were able to carry a few household items. some had bundles of food, many did. some had extra clothing, though many didn't. most only had the clothes on backs. they travel at night, whether it was by water or through the woods. and they endured untold hardships. and we will only get glimpses of what they experienced in missionary accounts of people they encountered and would ask them what what when you arrived,

how did you get here? what were your experiences? and they just tell you little bits and, pieces in the same way that people who have been refugees years and they're fleeing or something, you know, a war or a bombing and they're fleeing to another location and they come up with kind the same limited descriptions because the trauma of their experiences is still very much alive. some of them excuse me, a total of 200 at one point. and i'm just going to give this example. there were 200 enslaved people who left from richmond, and this is somewhere 1861. so between june and september, then excuse me, they left from richmond only three, made it to

the fort at happened to the rest? we don'tno but only three made it to the fort. so the travails were rea thri was great. we don't know how many died or were captured the way. we don't know what happened to many of the people who didn't make it. we just know some of the stories. the people who did amass. exodus also began occurring in the what they call the upcountry plantations along the james and especially the york rivers, the york river is where the majority of large tobacco plantations were located in hampton roads and so we would start to see by august, september, october we would start seeing fire family groups starting to find their

way to the fort monroe area. in fact, what is interesting and i love this particular drawing because it shows you these family groups, obviously, they this cart, they stole that mule. they probably had be working on that plantation all of their lives. and they felt that it was theirs. they had worked for it, but they took whatever they could grab andveleto the fort. but i wanted show you this particular map. and i pull out the one in the hampton roads area while it lists a number of the contraband camps. it does not even begin to list of them. and so you a lot of them, especially in the north carolina area and that's why the confederates were trying to fortify those area especalonthe

coastal areas. but in hampton roads for every that youtherere three or four ban camps in that same general area. for ample, they have one in hampton, but hampton h actuallyo camps. one was called slap town, and that's now part phoebus. it's the phoebus section of hamp and the other was the grand contra camp, is downtown hampton. and that's where african-americans is stabbed. what i call freedom's first communitre ty had b they hadailors, they had ey had huge number of businesses, hotel a hotel. they also had lots of middle class housing as well as lots of different churches. that area was wiped out by

hampton as part of their and will put it in air quotes. urban renewal in the 1970s. and they have even rebuilt most of that area today. but these contraband camps were in enormous. in norfolk, you had one in downtown norfolk and nort that time in 1861 was four square miles. portsmouth was two square miles. so the of the contraband camps werectually in what we call norfolk county, located on plantations throughout. so there were at least different contraband camps in norfolk and all along the york river. there were numerous contraband in camps, including a slap town, yorktown, that they call slap town. and they call these places slap town, big slap towns, because they were doing is using the

left over wood to create initially makeshift homes. and then, of course, as time went on, they would rebuild their homes from wood that was processed. so we would see this many of these freedom seekers who met with some degree of success arriving the fort, but then being elsewhere. now, initially in his contraband declaration, only considered black men who were helping unwillingly helping the confederacy to be under his protection. but by the end of august, he realized that that was a limiting decision because so many were arriving with families. some were arriving with older people and, he actually

explained, because of his because of the cries of humanity he was expanding and, extending that to include not just the men who were served, who could potentially help and serve the confederacy, but all freedom seekers who were arriving. and and the reason i for a minute to talk about that, because this is this would be the thinking of abraham lincoln, because as he by july of 1862 is he was thinking about crafting and the emancipation proclamation. and he did come out with a preliminary emancipation proclamation. and if you want a real snooze document to read, read the preliminary emancipate document, proclamation because that one is a legal document, it has every bit of legalese. it's like reading a contract. it will put you to sleep

immediately. so, you know, i'll challenge you to read right after this lecture. but but that particular but by the time he issued the emancipation proclamation and it did have limitations and caveats, but at the same lincoln that when once he set the wolf loose, meaning once he opened door for ending slavery, there was no closing that door. butler knew that once he issued this idea of declaring people as contrabands of war. there was no way he could close that door again. and so he then began to set up work camps, and he began to people to work. now, eventually, conger, this would come up with different conscription acts. the first one in august of 1861,

that basically a may policy what butler did at fort monroe and then by the second conscription act, id a different element. it added an element o soldiers, but not soldiers. organized as is part of ae contraband army to gather goods, food as well, to go into areas that occupiehe confed. it's where were plantaand bring those individuals who were enslaved on those plantations back to the union lines. and this, of course, what would be eventually the precursor to the emancipation proclamation, that one would declare anybody who was enslaved in confederate territory as free. but secondly, this is where it got dicey as far as he was

concerned. he would organize the united states colored troops. he would put a gun in the hands of african american men and tell them go shoot some white men. and he knew that was sent shivers. in fact, you know, virginia had a governor back in 1775 do kind of the same thing called dunmore proclamation, 1775, in which he organized the ethiopian regiment. had a different impact, though. but these men were prior armed with the second conscription act to become part of the united states. colored troops, beginning into summer of 1863. and that's not including the two state units. one in south carolina and then the one in massachusetts, the

54th massachusetts regiment. well, there was a may 27th letter that a lieutenant general, winifred scott wrote or excuse me, that butler wrote to scott, in which he said that he believed providing sanctuary to runaway slaves rather than returning them to their owners was a military necessity for the because, of course, it deprives the confederacy of two important things. one, these individual would no longer be working on the plantations. and remember, the south produced 7/8 of the world's cotton production, 7/8 of a world's cotton production. slavery was america's business. and so depriving the confederacy was still sending cotton to england. it would deprive of an important financial money stream.

the second thing is, it would deprive south of the people who were building the fortifications making the weapons. tredegar factory in virginia. owned over a hundred enslaved men. and they were the ones building weapons for the confederacy. and so they want to to accomplish two things with one stroke. there were probably over 900 people who actually accepted at fort monroe. they the records interesting because and this is what a lot of librarians have told me, and military records experts at the time, that these freedom seekers arriving at the fort, they weren't considered that

important to write down the names. sometime as they wrote down numbers, sometime they would just say, you know, 20 some or hundred some in the records. so we don't really know how many got to the fort. we do know there were at least 900 people from the document arts. so they came with. they didn't care what the military was going do or not do as as they got sanctuary, as long as they had the military protecting them. they did not care. they came with hope. the expectation for freedom. but they were met with a lot of the same racism and, discrimination from white northerners that they had to deal with from the white southerners. some of the were very kind to them, actually helped them to

learn how to read and write, while others them as if they were enslaved because they still saw them in that in that context. many of these seekers, though, did not sit idly by and wait for somebody to give them freedom or somebody to treat well. they made their way. they pushed the boundaries a limitation as established by our system and in america excuse me and you will read accounts from missionaries as well as some of the letters that they would write that they knew about the declaration of independence. they knew about the the words we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. they often cited them in their letters or in their so so when the nation took the stand of declaring them contrabands.

they believed this was the beginning of the end of slavery and we know that it would a long time before that would actually become a reality because shortly after the end of the civil war, many of them were faced with the hostility of a returning army that resulted in countless deaths, as well as lynching. well, that's another story for another time, butler going back to butler. he decided to accept these individuals. but the problem or the question, the problem he had and the question he raised was what should i do with them? should i send them north? should i have them basically doing same thing for the union government that they're doing for the people enslaved them. what responsibility does a governor then have for their

well-being? he wasn't getting additional moneys to help provide food and whatnot for refugees. that would be provided once congress acted and someone in it would be provided. but what would he do? well, in virginia and i'm going to give you this quote he said, he said, the average china, there is enough land to be cultivated and enough houses that were deserted. so african-american thought, oh, does he mean that he's going to resettle us on land? he's going to allow us to have our own homesteads? well, he wasn't suggesting a redistribution of land reality was that in the forces of future blacks were put to work for the government in areas under federal control. and you see these.

not only from the places people were red, buthis picture where they're crossing the rappahannock river, that there are unioroops who are providing at least some degree as the tents that wouldas well eventually be provided. and these were basic army tents thate provided for a number, especially of these families of freedom seekers. in the first two years. butler while he'ven credit for issuing this contraband decision, butler really did not well of people african descent. he a lot of negative things that he said and wrote about that when he was sent to new orleans. by the end of 61. you know, he kept landing into places that lincoln thought he would be out of trouble and he

would put them there and he would start trouble wherever you went, which is why eventually send him back. virginia, i guess if you're going to be in trouble, be in trouble. where you started and let's see what, you can do make some good trouble where you are. but when he went to new orleans, he he really did not extend this contraband idea to the blacks in new orleans. interestingly, in part because he got so much blowback when he was in virginia. but the other part is he thought new orleans was a little different culture. now, why i have no idea. but he thought it was and so he was trying to negotiate a better relationship with the whites in new orleans than. he had with those in virginia, in part because new orleans was a place where many white confederates did not leave the city at fort monroe. whites abandoned hampton in 1861

and tried to burn the village down completely, which is why blacks were able to set up a camp that was eventually called the grand contraband camp in downtown. so the situation was a little different. it would take until early 1864 that butler would start changing his mind about how he perceived african-americans. but it would it would, as i said, take some time. what did do successfully was the pattern he set and that others contend ensued after he left. they would. you would see that duplicated there were union soldiers. most agree forts were not the place for refugees. instead officials regarded the union lines and forts as transitional areas from which

the freedom seekers would be resettled old. freedom struggle struggled them with finding a safe haven. they in constant motion, especially early in the lo south as troops were moving, they would have to pick up and so there was a conmotion going on. they were constantly in search of in fact, many of these contraband camps in the lower south. people like flies. they died of of deprivation from, food, poor water, dysentery would, killed a lot of people, not just the contraband but the soldiers as well. and of course, medical science was really primitive during the civil war. you know the civil war gave doctors the first opportunity to experiment on a lot of people. all of a sudden, they perfected the art of removing a limb without killing the patient,

without causing someone to bleed to death. because trial and error not because they were following some rules. the military in 1861, actually issued an order to all commanders that when the troops marched hard, don't give them water give them spirits. i don't know if that's sinking into your minds. so let's give them alcohol and dehydrate them even more. as opposed to water. and so a lot of the beliefs of medical science in the civil war was contrary to good health. and so medical science was actually responsible for killing a lot of people because they just did not know. that's why people, harriet tubman, were so important. harriet tubman served as a nurse in a lot of hospitals, including

the monroe hospital. she brought, with her home remedies we call home remedies. these were natural remedies that were passed down to her generationally. some of them from africa as to how you're supposed to heal certain wounds, how you were supposed to take care of certain fevers. did you know at that time bleeding was the thing? oh, let's weaken the patient more by bleeding them, because it was there was a belief that the fever was in the blood. so the blood and you remove the fever? of course you remove the blood. you kill the patient. and so a lot of people die from these so-called remedies that they had from thorough physicians medical science. but harriet tubman is remedies actually worked. and she began to disseminate a lot of those remedies wherever she went as a nurse.

history and jim downes, who wrote a book and if you've never read it, get it. it's called sick from freedom african illness and suffering during the civil and reconstruction. he highlights the challenges that many of these freedom seekers had during this particular and contrasted them with trials were faced by earlier escape, as he said, those fleeing from slavery to union lines fell within. none of the recognized categories that people were accustomed to dealing with. gunshot for example, dysentery, smallpox, pox, pneumonia. instead many of these people were living polluted conditions because these were makeshift camps. so you might have a stream, but then everything goes in that water and people are drinking from contaminated water. or there's not enough food not

enough clothing. you know, most enslaved people received two changes of clothes per year. that was it just to you know, we a lot of mythology surrounding slavery where all the movies, especially movies like gone with the wind provided you with this mistaken image that enslaved people were well dressed and that was not true. and all you have to do is look at these pictures that were often made by abolition. this are people who just arrived in places like philadelphia or, new bedford, massachusetts, or bos or syracuse, new or any of these other places to see that the way that they lived and the way that they were dressed was contrary to any good health and well-being. and so downes talks about how

these people who fled to union lands. they were weakened by their journey and then when they arrived there was really little to no food for them. many actually died from a lack of food and a lack of water. they died by the thousands and it wasn't just the lower south. all you have to do is read the materials of what happened in alex. andrea, virginia and how in a place that's right across the potomac to washington, d.c. you have thousands of people dying, hundreds every day in some those country excuse me contra band camps. well, this is an exam model of how so many african-american were put to work in this drawing was done from the vantage point of from fort monroe. confederates never or thought

about tryingke ft monroe, and it's because of robert e lee, who was thain engineer who helped to build fort monroe. he built an impenetrable fort, and he that it was a fool' folly to try to and te impenetrable fort. and so because it was such an incredible and impenetrable fort, people kind of forgot about it. not it as an important instance nation that ended up becoming so important during the civil war. now, following lincoln's and i want to just kind of take you through a few other pictures and then i want to talk about what happens after lincoln's proclamation. i thought this particular ing done by a missionary was

really important and poignant because it shows missionaries were doing and these were missionaries from northern. most of them were abolitionists, and they were coming down. they were providing food, they wereviding education, they were providing religious comfort to many the formerlylaved people. and this drawing was done of newport news after the big bethel battle. d you had a number of in that area. andt's the only picture i've ever of inside fort monroe. if you visit fort monroe, you, will see these barracks. this picture was drawn by joseph wh escaped through the underground railroad from no end up in new bedford, got aboard a whaling vessel during the before war d,eard about the war starting, made his way on a

packet shithe y from venice back up to massachusetts n bedfod then enlisted in the 54th massachusetts regiment. after the war, he commissioned in by the grand army of the republic of which he was twrite this about the experiences blacks in america's war up until that in and so he drew this picture because. this is where he, , had visited fort monroe. he was, as i said, the norfolk, th a and he's actually buriedn hampton. and this shows of thearracks and how women, african-american n re often the laundress for the who were actually inside fort. and so there were there was a lot of activ inside of the fort. but most of those freedom seekers were actuall outside of the fort with only a

few exceptions. this is one of the placeed slab town that is now the section of phoebus. phoebus used to be a tiny little town outside. so you had hampton, which was a a village that became a city. and then you have phoebus. that was a little that ended up getting annexed into into hampton. what's interesting about. excuse me, phoebus, that it has some streets that just the grand contraband camp lets you know who used to live there, have a street called union street have a street called lincoln street. well, you know, confederates did not name those streets. union and lincoln and, same thing. they had similar names in the grand contraband camp. you had.

so this this kind of shows you some of the houses. sothem that were now fixed up. but this was still this was a was taken right around the time of 1864, 1865. and so many of the people ar quickly gone from creating slab houses to creating wooden framed houses that looked standard to people are living today. i want to show you this picture. i'm sorry, this picture because it shows it shows aantage of the town of hampton while i talk about a woman who actually helped to change the course of the war in just a short period of time. and this woman was named mary

levesque. her original name was mary ogilvy before she married. her father was a haitian refugees. so he arrived in norfolk in about in about 1794. she was a woman who the church at st patrick's catholic church in norfolk, which is now st mary's basilica. and they recently discovered a tunnel underneath the church. and there there's no in the city of a tunnel being there but a brick lined tunnel was built in the 1840s based on the forensics of the brick and is three feet wide and four feet deep. and where it was it would bottom out to near a wharf and its trajectory right from the wharf all the way into the black community. mary lou vest worshiped in that

church. her she and her husband, who's from guadeloupe, owned a tavern near the got in norfolk, but right across from the gosport navy shipyard, which is now the norfolk naval shipyard in portsmouth sometime in 1861,. early 1862, they were in contact with a man who was a union sympathy officer, but he worked with the engineers of the gospel navy, a white man who copied the plans of ship that was being constructed or refitted, i should say, by the confederates and renamed the sea. ss virginia. he gave plans to and her husband, but it was mary who ended up making her way all the way to washington, d.c., aboard a ship, and she would not give

her those plans to anybody but the secretary of war, edwin stanton. now, if you can imagine this free black woman, nobody arrived in washington d.c. and said she wanted to see the secretary of war and she ended up seeing the secretary of war. she was a formidable woman. she was granted a private audience, gave him the plans. it confirmed what the they already had heard that there was an ironclad ship being refitted in in at the gosport navy shipyard. it caused them to speed up the production of the uss monitor and she would stay in contact with stanton for years after that event. he was actually sorry that they were not that the government was not able to give her a pension because of her work, because she

was a woman. there were other people like harriet tubman. she was the first woman to lead troops into battle. her efforts resulted in the largest escape of enslaved people ever. over 700 people. and yet she was not given a pension either because she was a woman. well, the emancipation emancipation proclamation authorized the enlistment of. african-american men and soldiers. it was not an easy situation. you've probably read or seen films about the the issues that were faced, lack of equity, not not being paid, not getting uniform terms, not being equipped, put in the heat of battle, etc., etc. but they lined up and fought and fact, you know, frederick

douglass was responsible for making sure that the majority of the men were enlisted in the 54th, came from new bedford and boston. why? because the majority of men who were freedom seekers or the children, the sons of freedom seekers were living in boston or new bedford. and he believed that those individuals would be ready and willing more than anybody else to fight for the union and to make a difference, prove themselves. now, as you heard earlier, this whole idea, the merrimack and monitor battle, was why the union government began really turning its attention more and more to hampton roads. not just the contraband decision. but the waterways made roads once again very important. it was not just port of

virginia, but it was the access, not only to richmond, but to washington, d.c. and fort monroe was plaght where it was not only to protect wash ington, d.c. from ever burned again as it was during the war of 1812, but also as this gateway, ashe the the station that would the gateway to all the rive leading up into virginia, maryland and even delaware. and that's perhaps why you had so much, many important battles happen all along the way leading up to richmond, including, of course, the famous ironclad battle. there some individuals that may you haven't heard about who were aboard monitor and i wanted to

give this example. so that you knew that there were african-american who served in actually both on confederate and union ships confederate sps yes as for workers, union ships, they first came in as what they call a boy, and then they actually were enlisted as sailors aboard the ship. see a cadre. and here's a closer picture of him. so see him in the distance he and then this close up of him he looks like, man, you d't want to mess wh. but he was one of 500 enslaved people othhiey plantation in charles city county, virginia. in 1862. he escaped and became a member the crew on the uss monitor.

it it he he was able tge aboard the ship because the ship was actually passing the shirley plantation on his watoity point. he enlisted as a first cssoy and later as a sailor. and he was on the monitor until it sank on december 31st, 1862. afterwards survived that and continued his service on different ships like the brandywine and in 1863. he was the florida as a landsman and later as a seaman on the wabash in 1864 and finished his service on the commodore barney. in 1865. he was one of thousands of african-american men who actually serd sailors ships during the civil war. well, you know, eventually butler did return back to the hampton roads area in the end of 1863, where you would see large numbers of of african-american

men enlisted in different units. this picture, again, taken from joseph wilson's book, the black sand, looks. shows you the first colored cathat was formed at camp hamilton. the second color calvary formed at fort monroe. the second colored light artillery th also formed at fort monroe, where the men were put in unif trained and prepared for battle. and they served in a number they as well as others who were like colored volunteers that were formed in no or wales african brigade that was formed in eastern north carolina. a lot of people who werens in the dismalwamp, they actually joined that particular. they participatehe peninsula. they participated in cab and

xcuse me cab in point, fort pocahontas, newmarket heights was the g point for the civil wars effort to. pturexcuse me, to capture richmond. you know, i can't talk without using my hands. wilson's landing hundreds as well as the battle of the crater in petersburg, been, etc. etc. they partipad ino of these wars after the war. some of men, those who were in the 38th united states regiment or united states colored troops regiment, were sent to texas and they served in in many of the ventures that the military had guarding, the construction of railroads, as well as in texas spreading word about the emancipation proclamation. when we celebrate juneteenth, we're talking about what these

men who were who were sent from the theater in the civil war down to the south, down further south to texas. those men were responsible for enforcing the proclamation in texas because texas was essentially the last holdout. you had confederate who were still fighting the war down there. you also had number of people. i want to show you this. these pictures. you had a number of these men. excuse m w are responsible for inny casr ensuring that the the battles like battle of craor example, even though that was lost by the union, the essentially sent almost as cannon fodder.

ny othese men were committed to making sure that their would free, and that's why they were willing to sacrifice their time and energy energy. so a few of them from hampton roads in parcular who were awarded the medal of honor and. i'm not going to talk about william carney, who was originally from norfolk and escaped through the underground railroad and ended up in new bedford, massachusetts, and became the first african-american to be awarded the medal of honor because of what he did at in south carolina. but some of these other men, like james gardner, who was in the six united states colored troops or miles james. and we don't have a of him. but these were awarded the medal. interestingly, their commander wanted them to be awarded officer status, but they

couldn't. they wouldn't the army was not going to allow an african-american to be a commissioned officer. you had some who were surgeons, but they would not allow them to be in an officer status. this is an example of some of the n o were awarded medal of honor. many of them served in the virginia theater during multiple battles, but especially in in one of in ofhe peninsula campaign. i want to end with this. and we'll show you this drawing that was published in i believe frank leslie's illustrated hand to rose in the nation were forever changed by the civil war and the events that happened in this region and beginning with er's declaration of enslaved

men as contrabands of war to th ironclad battle in the work of mary lou vest to the peninsula campaign and the work of countless african-american men who served in those regiments and other, as well as serving aboard ships that it was in hampton roads, that would see this model made real and manifested in what has forgotten now is that all began at fort monroe. freedom's. thank you, john.