Map showing the distribution of slaves in the southern states in 1860
Library of Congress
On September 17, 1862, the small town of Sharpsburg, Maryland became the scene of the bloodiest single day in American history, resulting in over 23,000 men killed, wounded, or missing in a twelve-hour period. The Union victory at Antietam enabled President Lincoln on September 22, 1862, to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that as of January 1, 1863, "all persons held as slaves within any State, or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.” One of the greatest ironies of the Battle of Antietam is that the Emancipation Proclamation did not free the 87,000 people who were enslaved in Maryland, including those who lived on the battlefield and in the town of Sharpsburg. Although a slave holding border state, Maryland was not in rebellion against the Union, therefore the Emancipation Proclamation did not free enslaved Marylanders. It would take a new state constitution in 1864 to end slavery in the state.
History of Slavery in Maryland
In 1642, the first known indentured servants of African descent arrived in Maryland. The two men were an African man named Francisco and Mathias de Sousa, a man of mixed African and Portuguese ancestry. The first known purchase of African slaves in Maryland was in 1644 in Saint Mary’s County. Up until the 1690s, most laborers in Maryland were white indentured servants. This changed during the 18th century. Maryland planters began importing more and more enslaved Africans and passed laws legalizing slavery and making it more restrictive. By 1755, thirty percent of the population in Maryland was of African descent. Tobacco was the main crop gown on the larger plantations of the Eastern Shore. These tobacco-growing areas had a much larger enslaved population than Western Maryland, which had smaller farms and grew more diversified (and less labor intensive) products such as wheat, barley, and cattle. This often meant that on the farms in Western Maryland the farmer, his children, hired laborers (both African-American and white) and in some cases, a few enslaved persons worked in the fields together.
Permission for two slaves to marry in Washington County, MD
Image from WHILBR, Western MD Regional Library
In terms of the issue of slavery, Maryland was in a unique geographical position. It was just south of the Mason-Dixon Line, sandwiched between slaveholding Virginia and the free state of Pennsylvania. This location, in some ways, made things more difficult for slaveholders especially in Northern and Western Maryland. They had to walk a fine line; if they were too brutal or too repressive, the Mason-Dixon Line and the possibility of freedom was only a few miles away. On the other hand, runaways had to weigh the personal consequences to themselves if they were captured and the consequences for their families left behind if they successfully made it to freedom. By 1830, the free African American population in Maryland was over 50,000 people. This was the largest number of free blacks in any state in the country. As the free black population increased in Maryland, legislators passed more and more laws to control and limit the rights of African-Americans, both free and enslaved. These laws regulated all aspects of their lives, including who free blacks could marry, whether they could own property or guns, and whether they could vote. In addition, laws prohibited free blacks from attending church without a white minister present. Conversely, mostly because of the decline in the profitability of tobacco farming, the number of enslaved people in Maryland had decreased by 1860.
The federal government did everything it could to prevent the border states from leaving the Union, including not emancipating slaves in these areas. In addition to its close proximity to Washington, DC, Maryland’s roads, railroads, and harbors were critical to the Union Army for moving troops and supplies. In March 1862, President Lincoln sent a message to Congress recommending that the Federal Government should give financial assistance to the states to use at their discretion to compensate “for the inconveniences public and private, produced by such change of system'' for the "gradual abolishment of slavery.” Although it passed both houses in Congress, it was not popular in the border states even among unionists, and especially not with the wealthy Maryland planters who controlled the state both politically and economically. These planters had a vested interest in seeing the institution of slavery continue. Maryland’s loyalty was important because if it left the Union, Washington, DC would be surrounded by enemy territory. In fact, it was Marylander John Merryman who was at the center of the conflict between Lincoln and Chief Justice Taney over Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in 1861. This suspension allowed President Lincoln to hold suspected Confederate sympathizers indefinitely without having them appear before a judge to ensure their detention was legal. Merryman, a Confederate sympathizer, burnt several bridges to impede the advance of the Union Army. For these actions, he was arrested and held at Fort McHenry. It was also in Maryland, in April 1861, where an angry Baltimore mob attacked Union soldiers from Massachusetts on their way to Washington, DC, killing several soldiers and civilians and wounding many more. The state of Maryland also raised several Confederate infantry, cavalry, and artillery units during the war.
Annie Davis, a woman enslaved in Maryland, wrote to President Lincoln on August 25, 1864: “Mr. President It is my Desire to be free. to go to see my people on the eastern shore. my mistress wont let me you will please let me know if we are free. and what I can do. I write to you for advice. please send me word this[?] week. or as soon as possible. and oblidge. Annie Davis.” There is no evidence the president ever received or responded to Annie Davis’s letter, but all enslaved persons in Maryland shared her plight. From the time of the issuance of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to the ratification of the Maryland Constitution of 1864, every single enslaved person in Maryland lived in limbo. Would they ever be free? Could their owners still split up and sell their families? Would their owners demand compensation before freedom came?
Slavery in Washington County, Maryland
Sharpsburg, Maryland was almost overwhelming pro-Union: National Park Service Historian, Dean Herrin wrote that: “at least 139 men can be identified from the Sharpsburg district who fought on the Union side, including eight who fought for the USCT [United States Colored Troops]. At least fourteen men fought for the Confederacy.” The total population in Sharpsburg in 1860 was around 1,300. The 1860 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedules lists one-hundred fifty enslaved persons and 50 slave owners in Sharpsburg, Maryland. In Washington County, Maryland, 1,435 people were enslaved, 1,677 people were listed as “free blacks,” and 398 people were listed as slave owners. In comparison, the entire population of Washington County, Maryland in 1860 was 31,417. Comparatively, Saint Mary’s County, which is right on the Chesapeake Bay, had a population of 6,549 enslaved persons and 1,866 free African Americans out of a total population of 15, 213 in 1860.
Comparison of Slavery in Washington County, Maryland to St. Mary's County, Maryland and Washington County, Mississippi
1860
Total Population
Enslaved
%
Free
Blacks
%
Slaveholders
%
Washington County, MD
31,417
1,435
5%
1,677
5%
398
1%
St. Mary’s County, MD
15,213
6,549
43%
1,866
12%
761
5%
Washington County, Mississippi
15,679
14,467
92%
0
0%
Unknown
Unknown
Population of the United States and Four States in 1860
1860
Total population
Enslaved
%
Free Blacks
%
United States
31,443,322
3,950,546
12.6
476,748
1.5
Maryland
687,049
87,189
12.7
83,942
12.2
Mississippi
791,305
436,631
55.2
773
.097
South Carolina
703,708
402,406
57.2
9,914
1.4
Virginia
1,596,318
490,865
30.7
58,042
3.6
Mumma Farm slave quarters and spring house
NPS
Although more Union-leaning than counties on the Eastern Shore, Washington County was still a divided area. Families who lived on what became the battlefield had very different beliefs and attitudes toward the institution of slavery. Henry Piper, whose farm still stands near the Sunken Road, was a staunch Unionist, however he owned several slaves at the time of the battle. Piper’s neighbors, Samuel and Elizabeth Mumma, also had two slaves listed in the 1850 census and one slave by the 1860 census. The Mummas were also pro-Union, but as pacifist German Baptist Brethren (Dunkers), their religion prohibited them from owning slaves. The Brethren Church, at their 1782 annual meeting wrote, “Concerning the unchristian negro slave trade, it has been unanimously considered that it cannot be permitted in any wise by the church, that a member should or could purchase negroes or keep them as slaves.” One of the enslaved persons listed on the 1850 census was a young woman named Lucy Young. In 1856, when she was 28 years old, Samuel freed her. In 1860, the young man, Lloyd Wilson, enslaved on the Mumma Farm was 11 years old. It is possible that the Mummas purchased him with the intention of setting him free on his 21st birthday. There is no evidence to support this specifically for the Mummas, but Dunkers were known to do this. In 1813, the Dunkers wrote:
No member, neither brother nor sister, shall purchase or sell negroes, and keep none for slaves… if there were members having slaves, or persons who wish to be received into the church and have slaves, that they might hold them in a proper way so long as the church near which they live may deem it necessary for the slaves to earn the money they had cost, and then, with the counsel of the church, they are to be set free, with a good suit of clothing; and if there are any who have not bought, but inherited their negroes, they are to be liberated as soon as the church considers it right and proper. And if members have negro children under their care, or even as slaves, they shall bring them up in an orderly manner, teach them to read, and keep them, if males, to the age of twenty-one years, and if females, to the age of eighteen years, and then, with the counsel of the church, emancipate them, with a good suit of wearing apparel.
Another neighbor, Samuel Michael, was strongly pro-Confederate and a Democrat. Writing to his brother David about two months after the battle, he said that the federal troops had taken most of his family’s livestock and that their total losses because of the battle were over $2,000. He said:
I have been arrested frequently by them [Union troops]. They held me once in Williamsport and in Martinsburg nine days. I was marched in the rain one whole day in water four feet deep and had to sleep in my wet clothes until they dried on me. And had to sleep on the floor in mud two or three inches deep... The charges was for helping the Rebels to capture a cannon. All of them was false and forged against me. I have got enough of the Negro War and think a great deal of the North. This you can interpret to suit yourself.
The Michael’s home became a temporary hospital after the battle. Samuel’s mother, Nancy and sister, Elizabeth died of typhoid fever in November and October 1862, respectively. He attributed it to disease from the field hospital set up in their parlor.
Western Maryland Regional Library
Many believe that slavery was less brutal in the northern slave states, especially in Western Maryland on the smaller farms. This was (and is) an incorrect assumption. On May 6, 1845, Frederick Douglass gave a speech in New York City. He said, “I can tell you what I have seen with my own eyes, felt on my own person, and know to have occurred in my own neighborhood. I am not from any of those States where the slaves are said to be in their most degraded condition; but from Maryland, where Slavery is said to exist in its mildest form; yet I can stand here and relate atrocities which would make your blood to boil at the statement of them.” In Maryland, as in other slave holding states, families including mothers and their children were separated and sold. In 1859, Sharpsburg resident Jacob Miller wrote to his daughter and son-in-law about a financial dispute he had with a former friend. This resulted in a judgment that forced the sale of Miller’s slaves. Another example is the story of brothers James Pennington and Stephen Pembroke. Born in Maryland, James Pennington escaped the Washington County, MD farm where he was enslaved in 1828. He settled in New York and became a well-known minister, author, and abolitionist. His memoir The Fugitive Blacksmith was published in 1849. In 1854, his brother Stephen Pembroke and Pembroke’s sons, Robert and Jacob, escaped enslavement from the farm of Jacob. H. Grove in Sharpsburg, MD. Using the Underground Railroad, they made their way to Pennington in New York. Within a day, they were recaptured. Stephen Pembroke’s two sons were sold to a lumber merchant in North Carolina, but abolitionists were able to raise enough money to purchase his freedom.
The Emancipation Proclamation did not free two enslaved men, Hilary Watson and Jeremiah (Jerry) Cornelius Summers, living on the Antietam Battlefield. Hilary Watson, enslaved on the farm of John Otto, witnessed the Battle of Antietam. Interestingly, John Otto, like the Mumma family, was a member of the Dunker [Brethren] Church, which prohibited enslaving people. While the Otto family fled before the battle started, Watson stayed behind. Watson recounted what happened while they were gone:
On Tuesday all the Otto family left and went down country for safety. I stayed on the place. Once I fastened up the house tight and walked up in the field. By and by I had a feelin’ that I’d better go back, and I went. I found some one had broke a pane of glass in a window and reached in and took out the nail that kept the sash down. Then he’d raised the window and crawled in. Close by, inside of the room, was a washbench, and he'd set a crock of preserves and a crock of flour on it ready to carry away. I took the things and put 'em where they belonged and started on the trail of the thief. It was easy follerin’ him, for he left all the doors open which he went through. In the dining-room he'd poured a lot of sugar on a handkercher to take along, and he’d gone into my old boss's room and strewed his papers around over the floor. Next he'd gone upsteps, and I went up 'em, too, and hyar [here] be was in a little pantry. He was a Rebel soldier- a young feller and not very large. I was skeered, but he was mo' skeered than I was - certainly he was; and I said, "You dirty houn' you, I have a notion to take you and throw you down those steps."
Oh! I could have mashed him, for I saw he had no revolver. He didn't say anything. He left. I reckon I was too big for him.
During the period that he was still enslaved on the Otto Farm after the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, the United States Army drafted Watson in May 1864. Watson said: "when I was drafted to be a soldier, my boss said, 'Do you want to go?' and I told him, 'No, sir.' So me'n'him went to Frederick and he paid three hundred dollars to keep me out of the army." After he gained his freedom in 1864, Hillary Watson continued to work on the Otto Farm but lived in Sharpsburg with his wife, Christina. He became a trustee of the local Freeman Bureau’s School at Tolson’s Chapel in Sharpsburg.
Jeremiah Cornelius Summers, photo taken by Fred W. Cross at Summers’ home on Bloody Lane in 1922
Photo courtesy Doug Bast
Jerry Summers was fifteen years old at the time of the battle and was enslaved by the Piper family. Jerry’s mother, Caroline, and his siblings were also slaves on the Piper farm. His father Henson Summers, lived a few miles away, and was enslaved on or near the Antietam Iron Furnace. Caroline and Henson had eight children, at least seven of whom were born before emancipation. The Piper family history states that Caroline and the children lived on the Piper Farm; they would have almost certainly lived in the “slave quarters” on the farm. The 1860 Federal Slave Schedules list seven people enslaved on the Piper Farm, most likely, Caroline Summers and some of her children. The 1860 census also shows a black farmhand named John Jumper living on the Piper Farm. In September 1862, Jerry Summers left with the Piper Family to seek safety before the battle started. In April 1864, United States Colored Troops recruited in Sharpsburg and “enlisted” Summers. In an April 13, 1864, letter to Major General L. Wallace (also the author of Ben Hur), Sharpsburg resident John Miller wrote of the incident:
U.S. Colored Troops, Captain Holsinger Commanding, arrived in the town ... colored men, free and slave, were seized and taken … among them, “Jeremiah Summers” colored boy owned and possessed by Henry Piper … Said boy being about 16 years and 9 months old, he Summers by reason of his minority, never having been enrolled, and hence no way liable to military duty .… Henry Piper … is and always has been a truly loyal citizen of the State of Maryland, and the U.S. After the seizure of said Jeremiah Summers [Piper] proceeded … to order his said servant to return into his lawful custody, this order being complied with, said Piper and his servant returned peaceably to his residence. There apon the officers in command ordered a guard to retake that said “Summers” … Piper proceeded to comply with that order, and whilst on his way to report to the officer met him ... [and] ordered said Pipers immediate arrest. Whereapon said Piper declined accompanying the guard of colored Troops, numbering 8 or more armed colored men, who in obedience to Captn Fletcher order seized Henry Piper and violently forced him forward pushing, pulling, and dragging him … fracturing the forefinger of his left hand, tearing his clothes and inflicting -- violence upon him. Whilst said Piper was in the custody of said Captn he was tendered his release from arrest upon conditions that the said “Summers” be forthcoming having obtained said Pipers consent .... Almost immediately thereafter said Captains Fletcher & Halsinger and the Colored Troops comprising their command departed from Sharpsburg taking with them the said minor servant of Piper. The forgoing and like aggravated cases, have thrown the community of Sharpsburg and vicinity into a state of intense feeling and excitement this community being unflinchingly loyal … voting in favor of Emancipation 329 and against Emancipation 2 votes, said Piper and the like sufferers, voting in favor of Emancipation.
Piper slave quarters on right and Piper House on left
NPS
Henry Piper was able to retrieve Summers because he (Piper) was a loyal Unionist and Jerry was underage. When the new Maryland Constitution freed Jerry Summers, later that year in 1864, he continued to live and work on the Piper Farm as a paid laborer. In fact, after the war Summers testified on Piper’s behalf when Piper sued the federal government for wartime damages to his farm. Fred Cross, a visitor to the battlefield in the 1920’s who photographed Summers, wrote “At Henry Piper’s death Jerry [and Jerry’s wife Susan] was given the use for life of a small cottage and garden plot facing the northerly stretch of the “Bloody Lane”, and here I found him in 1922 and in 1924 …. He died in 1925 aged about 76 or 77 years.”
Freedom Through Service
Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not free enslaved persons in Maryland or other border states, it did open up one pathway to freedom by enabling African American men to enlist or be drafted into the Union army. In the Emancipation Proclamation Lincoln declared, “And I further declare and make known, that such persons [enslaved African Americans] of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States to garrison forts, positions, stations, and other places, and to man vessels of all sorts in said service.” African American soldiers served in all-black regiments. Almost always they were commanded by white officers. In February 1864, Congress amended Section 24 of the Enrollment Act of 1863 (also known as the Conscription Act). It stated,
That all able-bodied male colored persons between the ages of twenty and forty- five years … form part of the national forces; and when a slave of a loyal master shall be drafted and mustered into the service of the United States, his master shall have a certificate thereof, and thereupon such slave shall be free; and the bounty of one hundred dollars, now payable by law for each drafted man, shall be paid to the person to whom such drafted person was owing service or labor at the time of his muster into the service of the United States … each loyal person to whom a colored volunteer may owe service a just compensation, not exceeding three hundred dollars, for each such colored volunteer, … on being mustered into service shall be free ... in the case of a slave being drafted, that the $100 bounty then allowed to drafted men should be paid to his master; and where a slave entered the service as a volunteer, instead of receiving the bounty which was allowed to other recruits, the master was entitled to receive a compensation from the Government, not to exceed $300.
Many slaveholders in Maryland saw the writing on the wall in terms of eventual emancipation and took advantage of the situation by recouping some of the future financial losses of their property through these bounties/payments.
[Antietam, Md. Blacksmith shoeing horses at headquarters, Army of the Potomac], Alexander Gardner, 1862 (Image is cropped and enlarged)
Library of Congress
Over 180,000 African-American soldiers and sailors served in the army and navy during the Civil War. During the course of the war, almost 30,000 African American soldiers died from wounds received in battle, from disease, or as a result of infection. African Americans served in the infantry, the artillery, the navy, and in support roles such as ambulance drivers, teamsters, cooks, and laborers. These men served with distinction and bravery, but still faced prejudice. The thought of armed black men enraged many people in the south (and some in northern and border states). Events like the Fort Pillow Massacre and the mass killing of surrendering African American troops by Confederate soldiers at the Battle of the Crater in Petersburg, Virginia made this hatred incredibly clear.
William Snowden's manumission and enlistment paper
Courtesy of Doug Bast
In Sharpsburg, records indicate that eight African American men enlisted in the Union army. At least five of these men were enslaved when they enlisted. One of these enlistees was William Snowden, enslaved by Samuel I. Piper (Henry Piper’s brother). William enlisted in Company K of the 39th United States Colored Infantry in March 1864. William was 5’2” and his occupation was listed as farmer. He was wounded at the Battle of the Crater in July of the same year. Company muster rolls showed him as absent and in the General Hospital at City Point, Virginia though October 1865. He was mustered out in December 1865. Samuel I. Piper received a certificate for Snowden’s enlistment that allowed Piper to receive compensation from the federal government. Other enslaved people escaped to Washington, DC, free states, or the Union Army during the war. The Confiscation Act of 1861 permitted seizure of property, including the slaves of Confederate sympathizers. In 1862, another law was passed that said that escaped slaves could not be returned to their owners by the military. These laws did not apply to slaveholders in border states, so as to not alienate them. Although runaways or “contraband” (escaped slaves) were supposed to be returned in Maryland and other border states, Union officers and soldiers were sometimes reluctant to do so. The “enlistment” of Jerry Summers was one example of this.
Poll Book
Western Maryland Room, Washington County Free Library
Civil War to Civil Rights
While slavery ended officially in Maryland on November 1, 1864, former slaves still had a difficult road ahead of them. After the Civil War and into the 20th century era of Jim Crow, former slaves and free African Americans alike faced discrimination in housing, employment, education, in restaurants, on trains and buses, and in public buildings. In some cases, former owners would try to indenture their former slaves’ children. In November 1864 a freed woman, Jane Kamper, appealed to the Union Army:
I was the slave of Wm Townsend of Talbot county & told Mr. Townsend of my having become free & desired my master to give my children & my bedclothes he told me that I was free but that my Children Should be bound to me [him]. he locked my Children up so that I could not find them I afterwards got my children by stealth & brought them to Baltimore. I desire to regain possession of my bed clothes & furniture.
My Master pursued me to the Boat to get possession of my children but I hid them on the boat
Jane Kamper (f[ree] n[egro]) X [her mark]
Inside of Poll Book with Jerry Summers' name
Western Maryland Room, Washington County Free Library
African Americans faced obstacles when voting, from poll taxes to literacy tests. They faced violence and hostility in their own communities. Sharpsburg, just like other cities and towns across America, had some residents who could not come to terms with emancipation. A 1905 Poll Book for the Sharpsburg, MD voting district lists both Summers and Watson (along with other African American men in the community) as registered voters. Though we only have a narrow window into their lives, over forty years after the Battle of Antietam, the Maryland Constitution of 1864, and the 13th Amendment, Jerry Summers and Hilary Watson, both enslaved as young men, at least in 1905, were able to vote along with their white neighbors. Although African Americans still face discrimination today, this poll book is tangible evidence that these two men and other African American men in the community had gained some measure of both freedom and the rights of an American citizen as a direct result of the Civil War.
