Contraband (American Civil War)
Contraband was a term commonly used in the
US military during the
American Civil War to describe a new status for certain escaped
slaves or those who affiliated with
Union forces. In August 1861, the
Union Army and the
US Congress determined that the US would no longer return escaped slaves who went to Union lines, but they would be classified as "contraband of war," or captured enemy property. They used many as laborers to support Union efforts and soon began to pay wages. The former slaves set up camps near Union forces, and the army helped to support and educate both adults and children among the refugees. Thousands of men from these camps enlisted in the
United States Colored Troops when recruitment started in 1863. At the end of the war, more than 100 contraband camps existed in the South, including the
Freedmen's Colony of Roanoke Island,
North Carolina, where 3500 former slaves worked to develop a self-sufficient community.
History
The status of Southern-owned slaves after
Confederate states had engaged in the American Civil War became an issue early in 1861, not long after hostilities began. At
Fort Monroe in
Virginia's
Hampton Roads,
Major General Benjamin Butler, commander, learned that three slaves had made their way across Hampton Roads harbor from Confederate-occupied
Norfolk County, and presented themselves at Union-held Fort Monroe. General Butler refused to return the escaped slaves to slaveholders who supported the Confederacy. This amounted to classifying them as "contraband," although the first use of that terminology in military records appears to have been by another officer. (see below).
The three slaves, Frank Baker, James Townsend, and Sheppard Mallory, had been leased by their masters to the
Confederate Army to help construct defense batteries at
Sewell's Point, across the mouth of Hampton Roads from the Union-held Fort Monroe. They escaped at night and rowed a
skiff to
Old Point Comfort, where they sought
asylum at Fort Monroe.
Prior to the War, the owners of the slaves would have been legally entitled to request their return (as property) and likely would have done so under the federal 1850
Fugitive Slave Act. But, Virginia had declared (by
secession) that it no longer was part of the United States. General Butler, who was educated as an
attorney, took the position that, if Virginia considered itself a foreign power to the U.S., then he was under no obligation to return the three men; he would hold them as "contraband of war." When Confederate Major
John B. Cary requested their return, Butler refused the request. Because the practice effectively recognized the seceded states as foreign entities, President
Abraham Lincoln disapproved of it.
Gen. Butler did not pay the escaped slaves wages for work that they began to undertake, and he continued to refer to them as slaves. On September 25, 1861, the
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles issued a directive to give "persons of color, commonly known as contrabands", in the employment of the Union Navy pay at the rate of $10 per month and a full day's
ration.
[1] Three weeks later, the Union Army followed suit, paying male "contrabands" at Fort Monroe $8 a month and females $4, and specific to that command.
[2]
In August, the US Congress passed the
Confiscation Act of 1861, which declared that any property used by the Confederate military, including slaves, could be confiscated by Union forces. The next March, its
Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves forbade returning slaves to Confederate masters or the military.
"Contraband" term first used by William Budd
General Butler's written statements and communications with the War Department requesting guidance on the issue of fugitive slaves did not use the term "contraband."
[5] As late as August 9, 1861, he used the term "slaves" for fugitives who had come to Fort Monroe.
[6]
On August 10, 1861, Acting Master William Budd of the gunboat
USS Resolute first used the term in an official US military record.
[7] As early as 1812, the term, "contraband" was used in general language to refer to illegally smuggled goods (including slaves)
