The Peninsula Peninsula Campaign Refugees

[Pat Young]

We don't often think of Americans as refugees, yet during the Civil War tens of thousands of enslaved people fled the Confederacy and entered Union lines seeking safety and freedom. The Peninsula Campaign in April, May, and June of 1862 saw one of the earliest flows of large numbers of Black refugees into Union lines.

At Battle for the Virginia Peninsula, Slaves Immigrate From the Confederacy to the United States - Long Island Wins

longislandwins.com

 

[OpnCoronet]

One of the great myths about slavery at the time and still repeated from time to time, even today, was the claim that the slaves were by and large content in their condition of slavery.

In the war itself, we have a steady flow(that through the war would steadily grow into a flood) of slaves fleeing to Union lines, in the expectation of being freed and this was true long before Lincoln's proclamation.

Whatever the personal or political beliefs of the individual Union soldiers, the Union armies became the cutting edge of emancipation and as already noted, it was so from the very beginnings of the war, when, at the time, the Union's goal for the war was to only 'Restore the Union to the way it was' before secession.

 

[Belfoured]

One of the great myths about slavery at the time and still repeated from time to time, even today, was the claim that the slaves were by and large content in their condition of slavery.

In the war itself, we have a steady flow(that through the war would steadily grow into a flood) of slaves fleeing to Union lines, in the expectation of being freed and this was true long before Lincoln's proclamation.

Whatever the personal or political beliefs of the individual Union soldiers, the Union armies became the cutting edge of emancipation and as already noted, it was so from the very beginnings of the war, when, at the time, the Union's goal for the war was to only 'Restore the Union to the way it was' before secession.

In his 1862 diary my ancestor in the A of the P recorded encounters with some of these folks, buying biscuits and fruit from them.