Fredericksburg slave John Washington escaped across the Rappahannock River and joined the Union army. He later brought his family to freedom through Aquia Landing. NATIONAL PARK SERVICE PHOTO View More Images from this story View and ORDER more photos.

Aquia Landing was part of an escape route for many area slaves during the Civil War

See related video

Date published: 9/7/2008

BY KAFIA HOSH

About a decade before the Civil War, Richmond slave Henry Brown folded his slender frame into a dry-goods box and shipped himself to Philadelphia.

The box traveled by train to Aquia Landing, where it was put onto a steamboat headed for Washington.

Now a park in Stafford County, Aquia Landing, at the mouth of Potomac Creek, was once the terminus of the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad.

Brown became a noted abolitionist. In his writings, he described arriving at Potomac Creek and being turned upside down as the box was loaded onto the boat.

Other slaves, including William and Ellen Craft of Georgia, also passed through Aquia Landing during their escapes to freedom.

Ellen Craft, who was fair-skinned, disguised herself as a white man traveling with his slave.

The couple's story and Brown's documented escape fueled anti-slavery feelings in the North.

"These were very daring, flamboyant escapes," said Norman Schools, a local Civil War historian. "It was great food for the abolitionist movement."

By the time of the Civil War, the region would see a mass exodus of slaves through Aquia Landing.

PLANNING ESCAPES

In the spring of 1862, the Union army invaded Falmouth in its quest to capture Richmond.

Slaves from surrounding areas used the invasion to quietly plot their escapes. They paid attention to how the war was developing, and quickly relayed their discoveries from plantation to plantation.

A house slave would listen to dinnertime chatter and pass information to a field slave, who might tell a carriage driver.

"They overheard conversations, so they knew things," said Frank White, a Stafford native and black-history expert. "They did a lot of listening."

The escapes were made feasible by the absence of some landowners who fled the area in fear of the Union soldiers. They left their property and belongings to their trusted servants.

But some slaves only feigned obedience as they planned their escapes.

"They wanted the masters to think they were not in a state of rebellion," Schools said.

The Union occupation also allowed slaves to roam more freely.

"The arrival of the Union army really broke down the structure that held slavery in place," said John Hennessy, chief historian of Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. "Many local residents talked about the slave population becoming restless."

Nomination process Stafford County is nominating Aquia Landing as site on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Researchers analyzed documents such as historical railroad maps, military letters and telegrams, slave narratives, freedmen's records and military transportation records. They must identify three primary sources of evidence that can prove Aquia Landing was a link on the Underground Railroad. Sources may be books, speeches, manuscripts, letters and other official records. The next submission deadline is Jan 1, 2009. --Kafia Hosh

Read more stories about Stafford
Date published: 9/7/2008

Most recent reader comments: