1862

The Union Army recruited Harriet Tubman in 1862 to lead an intelligence network in South Carolina. She organized a ring of Black scouts who gathered information behind Confederate lines, leveraging the invisibility that enslaved people had long cultivated. Her intelligence work directly enabled the Combahee River Raid of June 2, 1863, in which Colonel James Montgomery freed more than 700 enslaved people — the operation she planned.

Susie King Taylor, who had secretly learned to read and write as an enslaved girl in Georgia, became the first Black nurse to serve with the Union Army when she joined the 33rd United States Colored Troops in 1862. She taught soldiers to read and write while also caring for the wounded, and later published her memoir — the only known account of the war written by a Black woman who served.

President Lincoln signed the DC Compensated Emancipation Act on April 16, freeing approximately 3,100 enslaved people in the District — nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation. Enslavers received up to $300 per person. Black Washingtonians celebrated in the streets. April 16 remains DC Emancipation Day.

Susie King Taylor, formerly enslaved and self-taught to read, attached herself to the 1st South Carolina Volunteers (later 33rd USCT) at age 14. She served as nurse, laundress, and teacher for four years — the first Black woman to nurse U.S. troops openly. She later published her memoir Reminiscences of My Life in Camp (1902).

The War Department authorized the First South Carolina Volunteers, composed of formerly enslaved men, in August 1862 — the first Black regiment officially mustered into Union service. Led by Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the regiment conducted raids along the South Carolina and Georgia coasts. Their discipline and courage were documented by Higginson and helped persuade Lincoln to authorize broader Black enlistment.

Elizabeth Keckley, a formerly enslaved woman who purchased her freedom in 1855, became the personal dressmaker and confidante of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln. She founded the Contraband Relief Association in 1862 to aid formerly enslaved people flooding Washington. Her 1868 memoir Behind the Scenes is a key primary source.

Charlotte Forten Grimké, a free Black woman from Philadelphia and accomplished poet, traveled to St. Helena Island, South Carolina, to teach formerly enslaved people under the Port Royal Experiment. Her detailed journal of this experience, later published, provided one of the most vivid firsthand accounts of Black life and education during the Civil War era.

Charlotte Forten Grimké, a free Black woman from Philadelphia and abolitionist, sailed to the Sea Islands of South Carolina in October 1862 to teach newly freed people under the Port Royal Experiment. She documented her experiences in Atlantic Monthly essays — among the earliest firsthand accounts of Reconstruction-era Black education.

Enslaved pilot Robert Smalls sails a Confederate ship out of Charleston Harbor to the Union blockade, freeing himself, his family, and the crew — and becomes a war hero and congressman.