Hundreds of Enslaved and Free Black Men Enlisted

Although isolated from Maryland's largest population centers, the Eastern Shore was important to the state's role in the Civil War and exemplified the citizens' divided loyalties.
In the years before the war, enslaved African-Americans here began escaping bondage via the Underground Railroad to the North and Canada, helped on their way by sympathetic blacks and whites and such courageous "conductors" as Harriet Tubman, an Eastern Shore native. During the war, hundreds of enslaved and free black men from the Eastern Shore enlisted in the United States Colored Troops, the black units authorized in January 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Afterward, returning black veterans established towns and emancipation celebrations that still survive today.
Some of the Shore's white residents held fast to the Union, while others supported the Confederacy. Although combat bypassed this area, families here as elsewhere suffered the loss of their men as well as the hardships of war. Newspaper publishers suspected of disloyalty to the Union were arrested. Streams and towns on both sides of the Chesapeake Bay became smugglers' havens as enterprising watermen ran the Federal blockade to supply Confederate forces. When the conflict ended, Eastern Shore residents returned to their fields and fishing vessels, and the passions of war subsided.
Please drive carefully as you visit Civil War Trails sites on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

Sorry, but we don't have a picture of this historical marker yet. If you have a picture, please share it with us. It's simple to do. 1) Become a member. 2) Adopt this historical marker listing. 3) Upload the picture.

Show me all markers in:  Pocomoke City, MD  |  Worcester County  |  21851  |  Maryland  |  United States of America

Wicomico Treasures
Cultural Treasures
Beach to Bay Indian Trail
Boundary Line Maryland - Virginia
Mark O. Pilchard
Costen House
Sturgis One Room School
NASA Wallops Flight Facility
Welcome to the NASA Visitor Center
Court House Hill

• GPX
• KML
• LOC

Have you seen this marker? If so, check in and tell us about it.