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J A M E S R I V E R
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C H E S A P E A K E
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ALEXANDRIA(See Inset)
WASHINGTON, D.C.
McDowellDelaney
Freedman’sVillage
Gabriel’sRebellion
Fort Pocahontas
First BaptistChurch
Jefferson School
Seven PatriotHeroes
The Cuffeytown Thirteen
USCT’s at Dutch Gap
Historic Pointof Rocks Park
ElizabethHobbs
Keckley
Burke’sStation
GallowayMethodistChurch
Dahlgren’s Cavalry Raid
Gabriel’sRebellion
Young’sSpring
First Baptist Church
Manakin
HAMPTON(See Inset)
WILLIAMSBURG
YORKTOWN
Big Bethel
New MarketHeights
NewtownCemetery
HARRISONBURG
FortHarrison
NBP
Baylor’s Farm
Martin Buchanan, USCT
Oatlands
Fighting forFreedom
PURCELLVILLE
James A.Fields House
Two USCTHeros
Henry BoxBrown
John Mercer Langston Birthplace
LOUISA
Old CityCemetery
Camp Davis
Patrick Robert “Parker” Sydnor
SGT MilesJames
ASHLAND
ORANGE
CULPEPER
CHARLOTTESVILLE
WAYNESBORO
GilmoreFarm
Corling’sCorner
PocahontasIsland
People’s Memorial Cemetery
PETERSBURG
High Bridge
FARMVILLE
JamesRobinson
House
SPERRYVILLE
SisterCaroline
DangerfieldNewby
WASHINGTON
Kitty Payne
Twilight ofSlavery
RICHMOND(See Inset)
Buckhorn(Ridley's)QuarterDred Scott and
the Blow Family
Nat Turner’sInsurrection
YorktownNational Cemetery
MoncureConway
Anthony Burns
23rd USCT at the Alrich Farm
WINCHESTER
Loyal Quaker andBrave Slave
FREDERICKSBURG
LYNCHBURG
HolleyGraded School
WARRENTON
Loudoun CountyEmancipation
Association Grounds
WoodlawnMethodist ChurchMANASSAS
Port Republic Road Historic District
The FieldsFamily
Communityof Grove
James F.Lipscomb
West PointCemetery
Shenandoah ValleyCivil War Museum
Luray ValleyMuseum
GraffitiHouse
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania NMP
PVT. James Daniel Gardner
LoudounMuseum
LOUDOUN
Manassas NBP
Afro-American Historical Associationof Fauquier County
Petersburg NB
Pamplin Historical Park and National Museum of the Civil War Soldier
AquiaLanding
Park
This map was produced in partnership with
Civil War Trails, Inc.
James A. Fields
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Alexandria Academy
Lyceum
L’Ouverture Hospitaland Barracks
Franklin and ArmfieldSlave Office
Beulah Baptist Church
Freedman’sCemetery
Shiloh Baptist Church
Third BaptistChurch
E PEMBROKE AVE
169
64
60
E MERCURY BLVD
351
Emancipation Oak
MaryPeake
Hampton History Museum
Fort Monroe
CasemateMuseum
African American refugees crossing the
Rappahannock River near Remington, Virginia.
Courtesy Library of Congress
See Southwest Virginia on
Reverse
ALEXANDRIA
E BROAD ST.
GRACE ST.
FRANKLIN ST.
LEIGH ST.
PARK AVE.
STUART AVE.
MAIN ST.
CARY ST.
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American CivilWar Museum
BELVIDERE ST.
GROVE AVE.Union Army
Enters Richmond
First AfricanBaptist Church
Friends Asylum for Colored Orphans
Freedman’s Bureau - Freedman’s Bank
EbenezerBaptistChurch
Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia
2ND
ST.
3RD
ST.
Adams-Van Lew House
Execution of Gabriel
RichmondSlave Trail
Henry Box Brown
RICHMOND
HAMPTON
“Make way for Liberty” printed in 1863
Mary Peake
Civil War Trails Site
Historical Highway Marker
Information or Welcome Center
Park
Monument
Related Institution
AMERICAN BAT TLEFIELD TRUST
ROAD TO
FREEDOMTHE AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
IN CIVIL WAR-ERA VIRGINIA
Richmond Slave Market, 1853, from With Thackeray in America (1893)
Virginia’s historical highway marker program began in 1927 and has
erected more than 2,500 markers across the commonwealth.
Fighting for Freedom “The Fire of Liberty in Their Hearts”
Freedom’s Fortress
Explore Their Stories Preservation
Enslaved people fought for freedom by self-emancipating long before the Civil War began. Assisted by effective escape routes,
safe houses, and conductors on what became known as the Underground Railroad, they made their way north. Those who remained behind did what they could to resist, whether through actively rebelling or more passively evading tasks. After the war started, many escaped to Union lines longing to fight for freedom. Authorities created contraband camps, including Freedman’s Village in Arlington County, to shelter families. Before President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, African Americans could not enlist as soldiers. The camps became recruiting grounds when United States Colored Troops (USCT) regiments were authorized in 1863. About 180,000 African American men—roughly one-tenth of the U.S. Army—served by 1865, with about 20,000 in the U.S. Navy.
Once they enlisted, USCTs found that they had to overcome whites’ doubts about their
With freedom for all when the war ended, African Americans finally could satisfy their desire for formal education. Even
before the war, African American teachers such as Mary Peake had secretly educated enslaved people. With the Federal occupation of Fort Monroe in 1861, Peake taught openly, first under a tree now called the Emancipation Oak, and later in a building at present-day Hampton University, which U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Samuel Chapman Armstrong founded as Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute on April 1, 1868. Dozens of white teachers, such as Pennsylvania Mennonite Jacob E. Yoder, who taught at a Freedmen’s Bureau school in Lynchburg, saw their students’ hunger for learning driven by “the fire of liberty in their hearts.”
African American political leaders emerged during Reconstruction. John Mercer Langston, born free in Louisa County in 1829, became a U.S. Congressman and the first president of today’s Virginia State University. Booker T. Washington, born enslaved in 1856 in Franklin County, educated at Hampton University and founder of Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, advocated for education and training in trades. Attorney James A. Fields, born into slavery in Hanover County in 1844,
Join T ActionThe American Battlefield Trust has spent more than 30 years at the forefront of the fight to protect some of the most important landscapes in this nation’s history and to help educate the public about the formative events of the country’s first century.
Chief among our accomplishments is the saving of more than 52,000 acres in 24 states. This land stretches chronologically from the Lexington Green to Appomattox Court House, and geographically from Minnesota to New Mexico. All told, since 1999 we have raised more than $350 million toward battlefield preservation from public and private sources. Individual achievements reflect the three aspects of our mission articulated in the American Battlefield Trust motto: Preserve. Educate. Inspire.
Administered by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, the Virginia Battlefield Preservation Fund provides matching grants to protect threatened battlefield land from the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and American Civil War.
Since its inception in 2006, this funding has helped to preserve nearly 9,000 acres of battlefield land across the Commonwealth, including significant acreage at the New Market Heights and Second Deep Bottom battlefields where USCT forces played critical roles.
Learn more at: dhr.virginia.gov/about-dhr/grants-incentives
Martin Buchanan, born free to a free mother and enslaved father, enlisted in the 2nd U.S. Colored Troops at age 19. Courtesy Ryan Pettit (artist)
Ten soldiers in their wagons near Hopewell, Virginia. Courtesy Library of Congress
Announcement of the 15th Amendment in the Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia, March 31, 1870. – Library of Congress
127th Ohio Infantry, which became part of 5th U.S. Colored Troops Courtesy Ohio Historical Society
During the night of May 23, 1861, a small rowboat landed at Fort Monroe in Hampton, and three enslaved men
stepped out—Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory, and James Townsend. They had been constructing Confederate fortifications at Sewell’s Point when they commandeered the boat and rowed to the fort to escape their bondage. Union Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler had just taken command of the fort the day before. He questioned the three men and learned that they were enslaved by Col. Charles K. Mallory, 115th Virginia Militia. On May 24, Confederate Maj. John B. Cary rode to the picket line under a flag of truce and met with Butler. Cary told Butler that Mallory wanted his property returned, as was required under the United States Constitution and the Fugitive Slave Act. Butler pointed out that Virginia had
seceded from the Union the day before and was therefore a foreign power not entitled to the benefits of the laws and Constitution. Cary responded that the U.S. Army was in Virginia to assert that it had not in fact left the Union, and therefore the slaves should be returned. Butler replied that because the men were employed in building fortifications to wage war, they were subject to seizure as “contraband of war” just as though they were weapons or other tools of a foreign power. Butler therefore refused to return them.
Within three days, dozens of self-liberated men, women, and children were pouring into Fort Monroe. Butler put the men to work, and gave all the “contrabands,” as they were called, food and shelter. He also wrote his superiors for guidance and approval, which came slowly but soon became official policy. Vast numbers of enslaved men and women fled to Union lines, where they lived in camps or “contraband villages.” Many were employed as cooks and teamsters. Many slaveholders moved enslaved
people deeper into Confederate territory, away from Union-controlled areas, to thwart them. By early in 1865, however, Confederate authorities estimated that between 61 and 70 percent of Virginia’s mature males had fled. Butler’s “contraband” policy, therefore, further encouraged self-emancipation and became a step on the road to President Abraham Lincoln’s eventual Emancipation Proclamation.
Fort Monroe, which guarded the entrance to Hampton Roads and the Chesapeake Bay, was completed in 1834. It stands on Old Point Comfort, where in 1619 the first enslaved people in colonial Virginia disembarked. Beginning in 1861, the fort earned its nickname, Freedom’s Fortress, as a haven for self-emancipated people. Today, Fort Monroe National Monument, as a decommissioned U.S. Army post, is also a National Historic Landmark and open to the public.
Fort Monroe, ca. 2007 Courtesy Wikimedia Commons
USCT recruiting broadside Courtesy Duke University Library
discipline and courage. Relegated to guarding wagon trains and depots, the men and their white officers demanded to see action. The bravery of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry in the attack on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, on July 18, 1863, helped turn the tide. USCT regiments participated in many battles thereafter, especially around Petersburg and Richmond in 1864. They defended Fort Pocahontas, in Charles City County east of Richmond, from attack on May 24. They were badly mauled in the Battle of Crater in Petersburg on July 30, in present-day Petersburg National Battlefield. On September 29, USCT regiments led the successful attack on New Market Heights in the defensive line southeast of Richmond. Again, they suffered heavy casualties, but fourteen soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for their valor. USCT regiments were among the first units to enter Richmond on the morning of April 3, 1865. About 5,000 USCTs fought at Appomattox Court House before Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s surrender on April 9.
graduated from Hampton University and served in the Virginia House of Delegates. Carter G. Woodson, born to former slaves in Buckingham County in 1875, pioneered today’s Black History Month and founded the present-day Journal of African American History.
The 13th, 14th, and 15th Constitutional Amendments abolished slavery, conferred citizenship, and guaranteed African Americans the vote. Quickly, however, former Confederates suppressed political participation through intimidation and new laws, forcing many into sharecropping or tenancy to maintain white farmers’ control. The “Lost Cause” ideology denied the centrality of slavery to secession and war, encouraged the erection of commemorative statues, and inspired Jim Crow segregation laws, crushing dreams of civil and social equality. The Ku Klux Klan, white citizens’ councils, and lynching supported those aims. Not until the Civil Rights Era of the mid-twentieth century were many of the worst effects of segregation struck down.
United States Colored Troops led the way on September 29, 1864, when Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler’s Army of the James attacked Confederate fortifications southeast of Richmond. A Confederate artillery position
north of New Market Road, atop New Market Heights, dominated the approach to Fort Harrison, a stronghold located to the west in the main Confederate defensive line. In front of the heights, the USCTs confronted trenches along the road, with two lines of abatis (felled trees with their intertwined branches facing south, as effective as barbed wire became in later wars) as well as a swamp. The USCTs had to fight their way through these defenses, climb the Heights, and capture the artillery to help protect other troops attacking Fort Harrison.
The USCTs started their attack just after dawn, hampered by a thick ground fog. Struggling through the swamp and abatis, many in the leading regiments were cut down as the fog lifted. When their white officers were killed or wounded, USCT sergeants took command of companies, and the men retreated, reformed, and tried again. By the time they reached the Heights, most of the Confederates had fled, and the USCTs secured it with little opposition. The next day, Confederate counterattacks failed, and the Federals held their positions. Fourteen USCT soldiers, and two white officers, were awarded the Medal of Honor for their valor.
Sgt. Christian Fleetwood, as well as Sgt. Alfred B. Hilton and Pvt. Charles Veale, all in the 4th USCT, received Medals of Honor for rallying their comrades with the national colors. Sgt. Powhatan Beaty, shown here wearing the Medal of Honor he received on April 6, 1865, had enlisted on June 7, 1863, and became first sergeant in Co. G, 5th USCT. At New Market Heights, when the officers were killed and the company decimated at the abatis, he took command of the
USCT soldiers awarded the Medal of Honor after New Market Heights
Pvt. William H. Barnes, 38th USCT
Sgt. Powhatan Beaty, 5th USCT
Sgt. James H. Bronson, 5th USCT
Sgt. Christian A. Fleetwood, 4th USCT
Pvt. James Gardiner, 38th USCT
Sgt. James H. Harris, 38th USCT
Sgt. Thomas R. Hawkins, 6th USCT
Sgt. Alfred B. Hilton, 4th USCT
Sgt. Milton M. Holland, 5th USCT
Corp. Miles James, 36th USCT
Sgt. Alexander Kelly, 6th USCT
Sgt. Robert A. Pinn, 5th USCT
Sgt. Edward Ratcliff, 38th USCT
Pvt. Charles Veal, 4th USCT.
220 29
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24122
ABINGDON Landon Boyd
Booker T. WashingtonNational Monument
Lovely MountBaptist Church
BEDFORDROANOKE
RADFORD
DanvilleMuseum
LEXINGTON
Members of the American Battlefield Trust’s Youth Leadership Team create preservation, education, or visitation projects in their local communities. Participants in American Battlefield
Trust Annual Park Day Courtesy American Battlefield Trust
Group of “Freedmen” by canal in Richmond, Virginia (left) Courtesy Library of Congress
AMERICAN BAT TLEFIELD TRUST
Powhatan Beaty Courtesy Library of
Congress
“The First Vote” – Courtesy Library of Congress
ROAD TO
FREEDOMTHE AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE
IN CIVIL WAR-ERA VIRGINIA
Visit these museums, sites, and institutions to learn more.
Afro-American Historical Association of Fauquier County aahafauquier.org
American Civil War Museum acwm.org
Appomattox Courthouse National Historic Park nps.gov/apco
Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia blackhistorymuseum.org
Booker T Washington National Monument nps.gov/bowa
Casemate Museum fortmonroe.org/visit/casemate-museum
Danville Museum danvillemuseum.org
Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park nps.gov/frsp
Graffiti House brandystationfoundation.com
Hampton History Museum hampton.gov/119/Hampton-History-Museum
Loudoun Museum loudounmuseum.org
Luray Valley Museum luraycaverns.com/attractions/luray-valley-museum
Lyceum alexandriava.gov/Lyceum
Manassas National Battlefield Park nps.gov/mana
Pamplin Historical Park and National Museum of the Civil War Soldier pamplinpark.org
Petersburg National Battlefield nps.gov/pete
Shenandoah Valley Civil War Museum civilwarmuseum.org
This map brochure brought to you by
Battlefields.org/RoadToFreedom
Valor at New Market Heights
remaining fifteen soldiers and led them forward. Beaty was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1837. By 1849, he was living in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he became a wood-turner and part-time actor. He returned to Cincinnati after the war and resumed acting, performing in 1884 at Ford’s Theatre to an audience that included Frederick Douglass. Beaty died on December 6, 1916.
Today, portions of the New Market Heights battlefield are protected by the National Park Service, Henrico County, and the American Battlefield Trust.
LtGen Ronald Coleman, the second African American to achieve the three-star rank in the US Marine Corps, at the New Market Heights Battlefield. Courtesy Jamie Betts Photo
Breaking the Chains
Long before the war that ended slavery, enslaved people were at war with the system that confined them. They employed various
tactics in daily battles for freedom within the confines of bondage. Far from being passive, they resisted by avoiding work, occasionally rebelling outright, and self-liberating. They used various tactics with some success, to evade work, befuddle enslavers, and otherwise gain small freedoms. Major rebellions in Virginia included Gabriel’s Conspiracy in 1800 just outside Richmond, and Nat Turner’s Insurrection in Southampton County in 1831. These events increased slaveholders’ fears, however, and hard, restrictive laws were enacted. The Franklin and Armfield Slave Jail in Alexandria and the Lumpkin’s Slave Jail (“Devil’s Half Acre”) and African Burial Ground sites in Richmond help commemorate the ordeal of enslavement.
Many enslaved people successfully liberated themselves using a variety of means. In 1849, Henry Brown, who worked in his owner’s Richmond
tobacco factory, “mailed” himself by train to Philadelphia in a wooden crate with air holes and “This Side Up” painted on the outside. He was known thereafter as Henry Box Brown. While he escaped on a literal railroad, thousands of others in Virginia and elsewhere slipped away on the “virtual” Underground Railroad, a network of friends and safehouses that guided them north through places like Pocahontas Island, a free black village in Petersburg. Some, like Brown and Maryland native Frederick Douglass, took up the pen and published to the world the truths of slavery: illiteracy; hunger; the separation of spouses and children; rapes; whippings; and limited access to churches. Their witness helped fuel the white abolitionist movement. Harriet Beecher Stowe (Uncle Tom’s Cabin) was a white novelist who thinly fictionalized slavery’s human toll in a book that reached millions.
Enslaved people fought to break their chains, then, through various forms of resistance, escape, and the written word. When the Civil War came, they were eager to fight in uniform for their right to freedom.
Enslaved family in front of quarters, William F. Gaines farm, Hanover Co., Va. – Courtesy Library of Congress
Our Road to Freedom app, an extension of this brochure, is free on the App Store
and Google Play — or in any web browser. Battlefields.org/RoadToFreedom
As you explore the African American experience during the Civil War in Virginia,
share your discoveries on social media with #RoadToFreedom.