Fortress Monroe Definition Essay

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The widespread belief in their existence in the first months of 1862 helped drive the national narrative that began with the appearance of the first “contrabands” at Fortress Monroe in 1861, the First Confiscation Act in August of that same year, and through the preliminary announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862, that opened the door to enlistment of African American men in the Union army the following year. By August of 1863, Douglass would be making his case for equal pay for black soldiers to Secretary of War Stanton and to President Lincoln in person, within the walls of the White House itself.
September, 1861; I found it! It wasn't a letter to Lincoln; it was an essay in Douglass' monthly newspaper, called "Fighting
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Hicks (United States Senator, Maryland) Excerpt from a Letter to President Abraham Lincoln: "I do and have believed that we ought to use the colored people, after the rebels commenced to use them against us.
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The Battle of Harpers Ferry was fought September 12–15, 1862, as part of the Maryland Campaign of the American Civil War. As Gen. Robert E. Lee's Confederate army invaded Maryland, a portion of his army under Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson surrounded, bombarded, and captured the Union garrison at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, a major victory at relatively minor cost. As Lee's Army of Northern Virginia advanced down the Shenandoah Valley into Maryland
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Sept. 1862; Major General Samuel R. Curtis (2nd Iowa Infantry) We are not likely to use one negro where the rebels have used a thousand. When I left Arkansas they were still enrolling negroes to fortify the
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1862; Major Frederick Frye (9th Regiment Connecticut Volunteers) Pickets were thrown out that night, and Captain Hennessy, Company E, of the Ninth Connecticut, having been sent out with his company, captured a colored rebel scout, well mounted, who had been sent out to watch our movements."
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Black Confederate Levi Miller, born in Rockbridge County Virginia, was one of thousands of slaves who accompanied their owners to the war as a body servant. After nursing his master back to death from a near-fatal wounding in the Wilderness campaign, Miller was voted by the regiment to be a full-fledged soldier (Jordan, 1995). Miller served the remainder of the war, exhibiting bravery in battles in Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. His former commander spoke highly of Miller's combat record, giving a riveting account of his performance at Spotsylvania Courthouse. "

About 4 p.m., the enemy made a rushing charge," wrote Captain J. E. Anderson. "Levi Miller stood by my side- and man never fought harder and better than he did- and when the enemy tried to cross our little breast works and we clubbed and bayoneted them off, no one used his bayonet with more skill, and effect, than

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