Bluejackets and Contrabands

Front cover

Download PDF (460.4 KB)
 

Copyright

Download PDF (34.8 KB)
 

Contents

Download PDF (32.5 KB)
pp. v-

Maps

Download PDF (21.5 KB)
pp. vi-

Acknowledgments

Download PDF (31.2 KB)
pp. vii-viii

This study of African Americans and the Union Navy would not have been possible without the assistance and encouragement of many persons. Over the past fifteen years I was fortunate to have access to the resources and advice of librarians at the Alexander Library at Rutgers University, the Firestone Library at Princeton University, the ...

Introduction

Download PDF (37.0 KB)
pp. 1-6

When the Civil War began in 1861, the population of the United States included nearly 4 million African Americans, most of them residing in the Confederate states. Of these, only 182,000 in the southern states claimed to be free blacks; the rest were slaves. Almost all these persons of color were affected in some way by the outbreak of war. In ...

Map

Download PDF (166.7 KB)
pp. 4-

1. Union Navy Policy Toward Contrabands

Download PDF (334.9 KB)
pp. 7-30

On a warm July day in 1861, Flag Officer Silas H. Stringham, commanding officer of the Union Navy’s Atlantic Blockading Squadron, received an unusual communication from the captain of the screw steamer Mt. Vernon. Unlike most reports from officers on blockade duty, this one from Commander Oliver S. Glisson was hardly routine. Glisson reported ...

2. Going to Freedom

Download PDF (151.8 KB)
pp. 31-62

Within weeks of Fort Sumter’s fall, African Americans began seeking sanctuary on Union Navy vessels. The regular appearance of federal vessels along the coast or patrolling southern rivers and creeks offered slaves, Confederate deserters, and even free blacks golden opportunities to make their way to freedom. Many of the earliest wartime escapes to ...

3. Contraband Camps

Download PDF (52.1 KB)
pp. 63-98

For thousands of contrabands, many of them former plantation slaves, freedom meant the sudden loss of regular sustenance from their white masters. Some possessed valuable skills as carpenters, mechanics, barbers, boatmen, and the like, but the majority of slaves had spent their lives as household servants or field hands dependent on their masters for ...

Map

Download PDF (295.9 KB)
pp. 67-

4. Informants

Download PDF (81.2 KB)
pp. 90-132

Whether liberated in Union raids and expeditions into the interior, captured on rebel blockade runners, or picked up in rowboats, canoes, or sailboats, most black refugees possessed valuable intelligence about Confederate morale, illicit trade, troop deployments and defenses, Confederate blockade runners, and ironclads under construction or in ...

Map

Download PDF (278.4 KB)
pp. 111-

5. Contributing to Victory

Download PDF (168.0 KB)
pp. 133-168

The growing number of contrabands presented Union officials with a difficult challenge. Able-bodied male contrabands were often enlisted as crew on navy ships or worked for wages as stevedores, mule drivers, servants, or military laborers. Initially, however, the army and navy had less use for women, children, and elderly runaways. Not wishing to clothe ...

6. Contraband Pilots

Download PDF (95.7 KB)
pp. 169-188

Of all the important contributions by African Americans to the Union Navy’s North and South Atlantic Blockading Squadrons and Potomac Flotilla, none proved as valuable as that made by skilled black coastal pilots. Suddenly called on to enforce a blockade of almost 3,500 miles of southern coastline, much of it deprived of functioning lighthouses and ...

Photo insert Follows Page 184

Download PDF (8.3 MB)
 

7. Contraband Sailors

Download PDF (186.0 KB)
pp. 189-228

In September 1861 Navy Secretary Gideon Welles authorized navy recruiters to enlist African Americans, thus creating an opportunity for hundreds and eventually thousands of former slaves to serve in the Union Navy. African American sailors serving on navy crews was hardly a new phenomenon. Unlike the U.S. Army, the U.S. Navy had always accepted ...

8. Joint Army-Navy Operations

Download PDF (48.4 KB)
pp. 229-248

Enforcing a blockade of the southern coast constituted the Union Navy’s principal Civil War mission, but federal gunboats and other vessels frequently supported Union Army operations by providing gunfire support, convoying and landing troops, defending army depots and supply bases, and participating in joint army-navy expeditions or raids into the interior. ...

Map

Download PDF (260.2 KB)
pp. 248-

9. The Final Months

Download PDF (237.7 KB)
pp. 249-280

As December 1864 came to a close, General William T. Sherman’s army approached its objective: Savannah, Georgia. During the army’s movement across Georgia to Savannah and on toward Columbia, Union soldiers frequently encountered and interacted with African Americans. Although many northern soldiers manifested varying degrees of racial ...

Notes

Download PDF (291.9 KB)
pp. 281-334

Select Bibliography

Download PDF (84.4 KB)
pp. 335-344

Index

Download PDF (128.3 KB)
pp. 345-373