Existing comment:
Changing War:
Slaves on the Move:
While war brought misery for white residents in Spotsylvania and Orange counties, it also brought hope -- and sometimes freedom -- to enslaved residents. In the spring and summer of 1862, hundreds, perhaps thousands of slaves in Spotsylvania and Orange counties fled into Union lines.
Their arrival forced upon the Federal government a historic question: what next for slaves -- bondage or freedom? The answers came on January 1, 1863, when President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
By war's end, two-thirds of Spotylvania's slaved had left the county. |