Slave into Soldier
Albert E. Cowdrey records the enlistment of runaway slaves by the North during the American Civil War.
On May 24th, 1861 a revolution whose end is not yet in sight began when three nameless men appeared at the pickets of Fort Monroe, a Federal enclave in secessionist Virginia. The men were black, runaway slaves of a rebel colonel named Mallory.
The new commandant of the fortress was a fat, sly, Shakespearean rogue named Benjamin Butler, and his career to date had not been one to inspire hope in a black fugitive. Behind him lay a long association with the Democratic Party; a political alliance with Jefferson Davis; a record of support for John Breckinridge, the South’s presidential candidate in 1860.
But at the outbreak of rebellion Butler had immediately sought an appointment as brigadier-general of volunteers, and he had already performed a service for the North when he seized Baltimore and secured Washington’s line of communications. His promotion to major-general had come with his transfer to Fort Monroe and, though the transfer had displeased him, he was not blind to the fact that a whole new career was opening for him.
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