Documents from Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation, 1861–1867

Editorial Method and Copyright

The following are sample documents from the volumes of Freedom: A Documentary History of Emancipation. Like all the documents in Freedom, they are transcriptions (or, in a few cases, images) of originals housed in the National Archives of the United States. They have been transcribed exactly as written, with no correction of spelling, punctuation, or syntax. Extra space marks the end of sentences that lack terminal punctuation or are punctuated unconventionally. Inferential readings of illegible or mutilated passages appear in brackets and roman type, [like this]; additions and corrections by the editors appear in brackets and italics, [like this]. Omission of material is indicated by a four-dot ellipsis centered on the line. Place and date lines appear at the top of each document, regardless of their placement in the manuscript. Inside addresses are omitted. Salutations and complimentary closings are run into the text of the documents. A full discussion of the editorial method appears in every volume of Freedom.

Because of the limitations of HTML and variations among web browsers, the sample documents will not appear exactly as they do in the volumes of Freedom. (For example, paragraphs are not indented.)

Following each document is a citation to the original in the National Archives, as well as to the transcription published in Freedom.

Material from Freedom and other publications of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project is under copyright. It may be used without permission for teaching, research, and other noncommercial purposes. It may not be used for profit without permission from the publisher.

Sample Documents

(Arranged Chronologically)

Maryland Fugitive Slave to His Wife, January 12, 1862
For John Boston, the triumph of his own escape to freedom within Union lines was tainted by the resulting separation from his wife.
[image of manuscript (62K)]
Proclamation by the President, May 19, 1862
After General David Hunter issued an order declaring free all the slaves in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, President Lincoln quickly overruled him and used the occasion to press his own plan for gradual emancipation, with compensation to owners.
Commander of the 5th Division of the Army of the Tennessee to a Tennessee Slaveholder, August 24, 1862
Writing to a former West Point classmate, General William T. Sherman offered a disquisition on why he would not return fugitive slaves to their owners.
Louisiana Planters to the Commander of the Department of the Gulf, January 14, 1863
Writing to Union General Nathaniel P. Banks, sugar planters lamented the effect of slave flight and Union military occupation on plantation operations.
Testimony by the Superintendent of Contrabands at Fortress Monroe, Virginia, before the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, May 9, 1863
Captain Charles B. Wilder explained how fugitive slaves, once having escaped to Union lines, worked to liberate fellow slaves and spread the word of freedom deep in Confederate territory.
Former Superintendent of the Poor in the Department of North Carolina to the Chairman of the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, May 25, 1863
Vincent Colyer, a Northern missionary who had supervised former slaves in Union-occupied North Carolina in 1862, described how they had assisted federal forces and supported themselves.
Testimony by a South Carolina Freedman before the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, June 1863
Testifying before a War Department commission that was investigating the condition and prospects of ex-slaves, Harry McMillan discussed his people's lives in bondage and their aspirations in freedom.
Commander of the District of Northeastern Louisiana to the Headquarters of the Department of the Tennessee, June 12, 1863
A Union general described to his superiors the bloody battle of Milliken's Bend, Louisiana, the first test of combat for a brigade of newly enlisted black soldiers.
Mother of a Northern Black Soldier to the President, July 31, 1863
Shortly after the battle of Fort Wagner, South Carolina, a free-black woman whose son was serving in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry advised President Abraham Lincoln of his responsibility to prevent the Confederates from enslaving captured black soldiers.
[image of manuscript (75K)]
Massachusetts Black Corporal to the President, September 28, 1863
On behalf of the men of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, Corporal James Henry Gooding protested the injustice of the Union's paying its black soldiers – in this case, Northern free men rather than Southern ex-slaves – less than their white comrades.
North Carolina Freedmen to the Commander of the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, November 20, 1863
Black men who had been forcibly impressed to perform military labor for the Union army addressed an indignant petition to General Benjamin F. Butler.
[image of manuscript (69K)]
Testimony by the Commissioner for the Organization of Black Troops in Middle and East Tennessee before the American Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, November 23, 1863
Major George L. Stearns described how the Union army's widespread employment of black men as military laborers and soldiers was undermining slavery in Tennessee, despite its continued legal standing.
Marriage Certificate of a Black Soldier and His Wife, December 3, 1863 [image (125K)]
The marriage of two former slaves, Private Rufus Wright and Elisabeth Turner, was presided over by a black army chaplain, the Reverend Henry M. Turner.
Plantation Regulations by a U.S. Treasury Agent, February 1864 [image (86K)]
A broadside announced the rules governing the employment of black laborers on plantations in Union-occupied Louisiana.
Maryland Slave to the President, August 25, 1864
Maryland's exclusion from the Emancipation Proclamation left Annie Davis still a slave. Insistent on her right to freedom, she demanded that President Abraham Lincoln himself clarify her status.
[image of manuscript (44K)]
Missouri Black Soldier to His Enslaved Daughters, and to the Owner of One of His Daughters, September 3, 1864
Private Spotswood Rice promised his daughters – and warned the woman who owned one of them – that their liberation was at hand.
Keeper of Sandy Point Lighthouse to a Baltimore Judge, November 6, 1864
Shortly after a new state constitution abolished slavery in Maryland, a unionist observer described the efforts of local citizens to nullify the former slaves' freedom.
Black Residents of Nashville, Tennessee, to the Union Convention of Tennessee, January 9, 1865
In a petition to a convention of white unionists that was considering reorganization of the state government and the abolition of slavery, black Tennesseans argued that black men were fit to exercise all the privileges of citizenship.
Provost Marshal of the 2nd Subdistrict of North Missouri to the Provost Marshal General of the Department of the Missouri, January 12, 1865
Slaveholders in Missouri who expected a state constitutional convention to abolish slavery showed less interest in holding on to former slaves than in shedding responsibility for them, a Union officer informed his superior.
Meeting between Black Religious Leaders and Union Military Authorities, January 12, 1865
A Northern newspaper reported the proceedings of a remarkable gathering in Savannah, Georgia. Twenty black ministers and lay leaders met with Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and General William T. Sherman to consider the future of the thousands of slaves freed by the march of Sherman's army.
Order by the Commander of the Military Division of the Mississippi, January 15, 1865
Intending chiefly to disencumber his army of the fugitive slaves who had followed its march to Savannah, General William T. Sherman reserved a swath of land along the south Atlantic coast for settlement exclusively by former slaves, promising the settlers “possessory title” to forty-acre tracts.
North Carolina Black Soldiers to the Freedmen's Bureau Commissioner, May or June 1865
At the end of the war, black soldiers stationed near Petersburg, Virginia, wrote to the commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau to protest the suffering of their wives, children, and parents at a settlement on Roanoke Island, North Carolina.
Chairman of the Orangeburg, South Carolina, Commission on Contracts to the Freedmen's Bureau Commissioner, June 12, 1865, Enclosing a Speech to the Freedpeople; and the Commissioner's Reply, June 21, 1865
Captain Charles Soule, a young Northern officer, described his efforts to instruct ex-slaves in South Carolina about what he considered to be their rights and responsibilities.
Tennessee Freedmen to the Freedmen's Bureau Assistant Commissioner for Kentucky, Tennessee, and Northern Alabama, July 27, 1865
Convinced that their newfound liberty was imperiled by hostile former slaveholders and restrictive slave-era laws, a group of freedmen sought the appointment of a local Freedmen's Bureau agent and asserted their right to equality before the law.
Testimony by Two North Carolina Freedwomen against Their Former Owner, [August 1865?]
A former slave and her daughter recounted the brutality they had experienced at the hands of former owners who were determined to deny their freedom.
Northern Teacher to the Freedmen's Bureau Commissioner, August 4, 1865
A Northern observer transmitted resolutions adopted by freedpeople in northern Virginia that explained the importance of land to their future welfare.
Cases Adjudicated by the Freedmen's Bureau Superintendent at Gordonsville, Virginia, August 16–September 13, 1865
A register kept by Captain T. Franklin P. Crandon described the cases brought before him and the actions he took.
Commander of U.S. Forces at Columbia, Louisiana, to the Headquarters of the Western District of Louisiana, September 20, 1865, Enclosing a Labor Contract
A U.S. military commander in Louisiana believed that, in terms of material welfare and the conditions of labor, the freedpeople near his post were faring as badly or worse than they had as slaves.
Committee of Freedmen on Edisto Island, South Carolina, to the Freedmen's Bureau Commissioner; the Commissioner's Reply; and the Committee to the President, October 1865
In two eloquent petitions, freedpeople voiced outrage at news that the land they had been promised was to be restored to its former owners.
White Tennessean to the Freedmen's Bureau Superintendent of the Subdistrict of Memphis, Tennessee, October 30, 1865
Fearing that armed and unruly freedpeople were planning to forcibly seize the property of white landowners, a resident of west Tennesssee implored federal authorities to take preventive measures.
Statement of a Mississippi Freedman, November 21, 1865
Two freedmen preparing to cultivate land they had rented were warned by white neighbors that their presence was not welcome.
Georgia Freedmen to the Freedmen's Bureau Subassistant Commissioner at Savannah, Georgia, November 28, 1865
Amid hard-fought negotiations over labor contracts for the coming year, ex-slaves in coastal Georgia indignantly rejected offers that failed to provide for nonworking members of the laborers' families.
Testimony by an Alabama Freedman before the Southern Claims Commission, July 31, 1872
With slavery in northern Alabama unravelling during 1862, Alfred Scruggs became free in fact if not at law. In postwar testimony, Scruggs described how he and his wife had labored to acquire livestock of their own, only to lose it to federal impressment parties in 1864.