(MILITARY CIVIL WAR) List of contrabands hired as laborers

Sale 2534 - Lot 312

Price Realized: $ 2,500

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900

(MILITARY--CIVIL WAR.) List of contrabands hired as laborers by a Union infantry regiment. Partly-printed manuscript document, 14 x 17 inches, signed by Lieutenant F.H. Rugar as regimental quartermaster, docketed on verso; folds, minimal wear. Stewart's Creek, TN, June 1863

Set Alert for Similar Items

Additional Details

A list of 12 men hired by a Union army regiment, in a "Report of Persons and Articles employed and hired." The first man listed was a wagon and forage master hired at $50. The other 11 were listed with first names only, marked as "contrabands," and were hired at $10 per month, mostly as teamsters, with one blacksmith and one laborer "taking care of public animals." For each of them, an owner is listed. These are presumably owners from the deep south, as the Emancipation Proclamation did not cover quasi-loyal Tennessee. Black soldiers would not be recruited in Tennessee until October 1863, and even then loyal owners were compensated. These men were hired by the 102nd Illinois Infantry, which was at the time guarding railroad lines in Tennessee, but would join in Sherman's march on Atlanta before the war was over.