The February 21 edition of Civil War Emancipation discussed evidence of slavery as an institution coming apart in early 1863. Also included was a cowardly but wise qualifier, “While slavery was far from dead . . .” This edition of the blog considers evidence of slavery’s persistence in the middle of the Civil War. Certainly slavery was under pressure throughout the South in early 1863, with the pressure stronger in some places and weaker in others. But the peculiar institution definitely was still far from dead, even after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
Source: http://dmc.tamu-commerce.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/afamhist/id/10206/rec/31
The first piece of evidence in this regard is a bill of sale for a slave, dated March 7, 1863. An image of the receipt is above and it states:
This document does not specify the exact location where this transaction took, but the receipt can be found online at the website of the Northeast Texas Digital Collections at Texas A&M University – Commerce. So it is safe to presume this document concerns the sale of a slave in Texas. The substantial price, $1600, while reflecting in part the inflation of Confederate currency, which was on average 10 percent per month from October 1861 to March 1864, was still much more consistent with prewar slave prices, where the average valuation of a slave was about $800 in 186o, and considerably more for a female slave in her childbearing years, such as Charity.
So it is safe to say slaves were worth a lot more in Texas in early 1863, which was the area of the Confederacy at that date safest from attack from Union forces, than in Maryland where slavery as an institution was under great stress and effectively dying. Indeed, Texas was the most common destination during the Civil War for southern slaveholders from further east seeking to “refugee” or keep their slaves away from the federal army. And so slaveholders in the Lone Star State in early 1863 were still comfortable buying and selling slaves at a price commensurate with high value of slaves before the war, not the fire sale prices for slaves then prevalent in Maryland. Eventually, slaves in Texas would be liberated, but it would not occur until just after the Civil War, when Union troops finally arrived in force and were in a position to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation.
However, it also should noted that slavery was not completely dead in Maryland in the first half of 1863, despite being increasing moribund. While slaves more and more could run away from their owners with a realistic hope of becoming free, at least some slaveholders in the state had not reconciled themselves to the fact those slaves increasingly could not be recovered. Still, some tried.
On March 7, 1863, the following advertisement appeared in the Baltimore Sun:
$25 REWARD – Ran away from the subscriber, on the 2d of March, a NEGRO MAN, BILL; he calls himself Wilmot Smith. He had on when he left home a grey suit, and wore a cap. He is of a light black color and wore a slight beard. Supposed to be about five feet six inches high. I will give the above reward, provided he is placed in jail so that I get him.
BENJ. T. WORTHINGTON Reisterstown Post Office, Baltimore county, Md.
And on March 16, 1863:
And on May 15, 1863:
So while slavery in Maryland was on the ropes in early 1863, it still showed signs of life. If for no other reason than at least some slaveholders had not reconciled themselves to its demise and continued to go through the motions of what slaveholders commonly did before the Civil War when slaves escaped–place an ad. And in Texas in March 1863, it was still seemingly business as usual for the peculiar institution. But there too the owners were simply in denial about what was to come.
Sources: 1) http://dmc.tamu-commerce.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/afamhist/id/10206/rec/31; 2) http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/WORTHINGTON/2000-02/0951598687