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Fredericksburg slave John Washington escaped across the Rappahannock River and joined the Union army. He later brought his family to freedom through Aquia Landing.
During the Civil War, this Aquia Creek wharf was bustling with troops and supplies.
Frank White of Stafford County is a historian
Slaves escaped from Aquia Landing to Washington Norman Schools of Falmouth, a historian who specializes in the Civil War, says escaping slaves boarded steamboats from Stafford bound for Alexandria and Washington. |
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,
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."
By late summer, the Union army began to withdraw from Falmouth. Slaves from across the region made a final dash toward Union territory.
John Washington, a Fredericksburg slave turned Union soldier, helped his relatives flee through Aquia Landing.
Thousands of men, women and children rode the rails to the wharf. Historians believe the slaves boarded steamboats to Alexandria and Washington, where many settled in Georgetown.
Freedom was only a concept to slaves until that final departure from Aquia Landing.
"You know that you're on your way to freedom," Schools said. "Now it's real."
PART OF THE NETWORK
Stafford officials are in the process of nominating Aquia Landing as a site on the National Underground Rail Road Network to Freedom.
Researchers have found a a six-page, handwritten report sent from the military railroad's superintendent to a Union general. According to the report, between April and September 1862 nearly 10,000 slaves filled trains headed to Aquia Landing, and many others followed the rail lines on foot.
The slaves were from Fredericksburg and the counties of Stafford, Spotsylvania, Caroline, Orange and King George.
But there is little to show where they went once they reached Aquia Landing.
"Did they actually board the ships as the Union evacuated the area, and did they transport them to D.C.?" asked Megan Orient, a consultant coordinating the Underground Railroad nomination. "There wasn't a lot of documentation about what was going on, especially in writing, for fear that it would be discovered."
There is also little documentation provided by the Union army, which was unprepared for the mass evacuation of slaves.
"In the East it was one of the first major examples of federal authorities having to deal with this phenomenon of emancipation, which no one was quite planning on at that time of the war," Hennessy said. "But they got it and they had to face it."
Researchers are now evaluating books that document the escapes of Brown and the Crafts.
"I think because they're such well-known stories, and they carry such weight, they will be looked very favorably upon," Orient said. "I think it will certainly strengthen our nomination."
Inclusion in the Underground Railroad program could increase Aquia Landing's public profile and make the park eligible for federal and state grants.
FUTURE PLANS
Stafford officials hope to have signs at the park explaining its history as a route used by escaping slaves.
"I believe we have a very rich history, and many stories from Stafford are the stories of our nation," said Tim Baroody, the county's economic development director.
If Aquia Landing is designated an Underground Railroad site, Stafford would be the only locality in Virginia with two listings.
The Moncure Conway House, owned by and named for the famous Virginia abolitionist, was included in the program in 2004. Schools owns the brick home in Falmouth.
Kafia Hosh: 540/735-1977
Email: khosh@freelancestar.com
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Nomination process Stafford County is nominating Aquia Landing as site on the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. Researchers analyzed They must identify three primary sources of evidence that can prove Aquia The next submission deadline is Jan 1, 2009. --Kafia Hosh |
