With the bombardment of Ft. Sumner in April of 1861, the American Civil War formally began. After a nearly a year’s deliberation, Virginia and several other Southern states had voted to succeed from the Union. Virginia’s capital became the capital of the Confederacy. But Ft. Monroe, located in the heart of Virginia, held a strategic position at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, across from the old colonial port of Norfolk. After Virginia voted to secede, that port became part of the Confederacy. It became one of the South’s access points to exchange its cotton and agricultural goods for war supplies coming from other nations. Moreover, the James River emptied into the sea at Norfolk. That provided a waterway that covered almost all of …show more content…
Though his strategy falls a bit flat of a ringing declaration of liberty, the news quickly spread. It sparked a rash of slave desertions, arguably doing more damage to the South than all of Ft. Monroe’s artillery could ever do. Moreover, it interfered significantly with Southern preparations to attack Ft. Monroe. A year later, Norfolk fell to Union forces. The North controlled the Chesapeake Bay and the mouth of the James River. The control of this waterway became the anchor point for successful Union efforts to take Richmond, the Confederacy’s capital.
Whether or not it was his express intention, Butler’s legal distinction drove a stake through the heart of Southern slavery— without legislation, Supreme Court action, or even presidential executive order. Consequently, Ft. Monroe became the first of a growing number of “contraband camps,” militarily secure locations to which slaves could run to escape their oppression, even before Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Butler’s distinction had started the mass migration of escaping …show more content…
He was. They have dismissed him as a lackluster military commander. He was that, too. They have also noted that he was cruel and autocratic. That’s on target, as well. In fact, he may very well have been unethical and corrupt. And certainly, no one would accuse him of excessive charisma; he must have been a sight in uniform riding a horse. But whatever his failings as a military leader, politician, or human being, his act of declaring escaped slaves as contraband was legal genius. Though indelicate, that distinction gave rational hope to slaves who wanted to escape their chains. It also set in motion events that guaranteed the Emancipation Proclamation, for Lincoln’s decree acknowledged what Butler’s legal claim had already made a fact. From all over the South, slaves had deserted their owners to find freedom under the President’s protection.
Strictly speaking, Butler’s argument still held slaves as property. That’s undeniable. But they no longer belonged to those who traded in slaves. Instead, they belonged to a government whose individual states denied the legitimacy of slavery. Consequently, the label of “property” could not survive the war. And it didn’t. The federal government formally joined the legal view of each of its member states, the states whose sons had died to defeat the Confederacy. Congress abolished the institution of slavery, passing Thirteenth Amendment in January