Enslaved People Flood Union Lines as "Contraband"

When three enslaved men — Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory, and James Townsend — rowed to Fort Monroe, Virginia, and General Benjamin Butler refused to return them, it began a mass movement. By war's end, roughly 500,000 enslaved people had escaped to Union lines. Living in dangerous, disease-ridden "contraband camps" with inadequate food and shelter, they nonetheless chose precarious freedom over bondage, fundamentally reshaping Union war strategy.