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Brev. Brig. Gen'l
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2005
- Location
- Right here.
Here's something I read awhile back. I've read some similar stuff elsewhere.
http://vshadow.vcdh.virginia.edu/personal/gloryland.html
"The worst time for local people came during the invasion of 1863. Confederate foraging squads gathered not only horses, sheep, and cattle but Negroes to be sent back into Virginia. They were supposed to capture only runaway slaves, but anyone with colored skin was in danger of being sent back to the slave markets or plantations of Virginia. When foragers came, blacks fled into nearby fields and wooded areas as mounted horsemen pursued and hunted them down. Sometimes local whites would identify the captives as freemen who had lived in the area for years and in most cases these were released.
In Greencastle, town officials were forced to accompany Confederate foragers to help identify fugitive slaves who lived in the area. One councilman, Charles Hartman, pressed into such service, was forced to walk most of one day to assist in hunting down these unfortunate people. In the end the local official and the Southerners found none. The councilman could vouch for all the blacks they found. The exhausted Hartman never recovered from this ordeal and within a year he died, an unsung hero of this dismal affair."
Thanks for this source, though I wish it were footnoted so we can see what sources he used. Bill Conrad, sadly, passed away. He and Ted Alexander wrote a book some years back called When War Passed This Way, and I've used it before, though not for this subject. I'll have to try to look for it again.