On Sunday, Aug. 17, 1862, the New York Times published a brief blurb titled “Employing the Contrabands.”
One month earlier, Congress passed the Second Confiscation Act, granting President Abraham Lincoln permission to “employ as many persons of African descent as he may deem necessary and proper for the suppression of this rebellion.” The new law gave Union Brigadier General William Birney a brilliant idea.
“The Southerners employ blacks as a military unarmed element,” wrote Birney. “I am of the opinion that we should employ them, unarmed, in like manner.”
Just below that article was a decree from General David Hunter. Even though Congress had just decided that the self-emancipated enslaved people could enlist in the Army, somehow, Hunter already had an entire unit that was trained and ready to go. All he needed to do was sign their freedom papers. “The Colonel Commanding takes pleasure in announcing that FREE papers will soon be issued to these faithful soldiers,” said the announcement. “They have shown by their prompt and willing obedience to the orders of their officers and by their fidelity in the discharge of the various duties of camp, that they deserve to BE FREE.”
The announcement contained a declaration of freedom for one specific soldier—a Black serviceman who had joined the Union Army in a year earlier. The date was obviously a mistake. The Union Army didn’t even have free Black soldiers in 1861, much less a whole regiment. To be fair, Hunter had a lot of paperwork. He probably just chose a random soldier’s freedom papers to share with the Times.
“The following is a copy of one of the ‘free papers’ issued to the soldiers of this command,” said the impossible order, adding:
The bearer, PRINCE RIVERS, Sergeant in First Regiment South Carolina Volunteers, lately claimed as a slave, having been employed in hostility to the United States, is hereby, agreeably to the law of the 6th of August, 1861, declared FREE FOREVER. His wife and children are also free.
No one knew who this Prince Rivers was or even why Hunter had made this cryptic announcement.
Harriet Tubman did.
America was about to find out.
Today’s Reading List:
The Prince of Emancipation by House Divided Project
Reminiscences of My Life in Camp by Susie King Taylor
What we’ve gotten wrong about the history of Reconstruction by Robert Greene II and Tyler D. Parry
The Grove of Gladness by Blain Roberts and Ethan J. Kytle
