The eruption of the Civil War and the subsequent abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia disrupted social hierarchy of Prince George’s County The Cecil Whig estimated in March 1864 that over 30,000 enslaved people escaped their captivity across the state and found freedom from their enslavers. Census records show the same for Prince George’s County.
In the decades prior to the Civil War, the enslaved population of Prince George’s County grew from 10,636 in 1840 to 12,479 in 1860. In these decades, the birth rate of the enslaved population was likely offset by high mortality rates among children, a short life expectancy for adults, and sales to the Deep South. The Evening Star in October 1863 called it “the late very large exodus from [Maryland] of free [Black] and slave labor”
In 1860, at the start of the Civil War, the combined total for the free and enslaved population was 13,677. After the war ended and a new economic relationship between White employers and Black employees was being established, the Black population of Prince George’s County had dropped to 9,780, a total comparable to the enslaved population in 1810. About thirty percent of the population had disappeared during and after the war, either having fled their estates or having died from starvation and disease inevitable during times of war.
While John and Patsy Hamilton survived the war, their family group did not and their children had disappeared.
In 1863, as the war raged on, Dr. Benjamin Lee died. A large landowner in Queen Anne District of Prince George’s County, his inventory named seventy-six people he enslaved. He resided at “Oak Hill” near the Sprigg Northhampton estate and near the Western Branch. His inventory also indicated his “Chelsea Farm” and his “Stewart Farm”. Benjamin Lee’s nephew, James Waring, was one of the appraisers for the inventory, who notated at the end of the inventory:
Owing to he unsafe condition of the above property consistent of seventy-six [Black people] produced by the war, we can value them at but an average of one hundred dollars per head.”
WAJ 3:132 Inventory of Benjamin Lee
In his inventory are included the names John and Patsy. They are listed near the beginning of the inventory suggesting they were more likely to be house servants rather than farm laborers. With them are the names of four people who are likely their children and grandchild:
- Pink, age 24
- Frank, age 15 months
- Egbert, age 17
- Letty, age 14
The children/grandchild have yet to be located in the 1870 census, suggesting they fled or died during the War and the ensuing chaos. Barbara Jeanne Fields, in her book Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland During the Nineteenth Century, wrote that after the abolition of slavery in the District, “families packed up such of their possessions as could be compactly assembled and departed, sometimes appropriating means of transportation from their owners”. The escape to DC was often along roads lined with slave patrols and local constables. James Waring, Lee’s nephew, had gone to DC in May 1862 to return a group of enslaved people who had fled from Waring’s estates. Because fleeing to DC meant the possibility of physical punishment resulting from exposure to elements and torture from patrols, it was often the “vigorous young men and women” who took their chances with the intention to come back for the rest of their family.
In June 1863, the Evening Star in the District of Columbia ran the headline:
EXTENSIVE STAMPEDE OF SLAVES
A FIGHT BETWEEN THEM AND AN INDEPENDENT PATROL
On Sunday night, some seventy-five slaves, belonging in the neighborhood of South River, Anne Arundel count and Queen Anne’s Prince George’s county, MD, stampeded, taking with them a wagon and cart, with horses and brining with them a portion of their effects. The party left the first named neighborhood about 11 o’clock at night, and travelled all night, at various points on the road being reinforced, until the number reached about seventy-five.
Yesterday morning, they were stopped near the “Long Old Fields” by a number of men styling themselves “patrols” armed with shot guns and pistols, but the party of slaves massed themselves and pushed on, the patrollers attempting to stop their profess and to drive them from the teams, and when about one mile from Fort Meigs, they fired into the fugitives, when it is said, one of the slaves returned the fire and selves other shots were fired. The party of fugitives separated and led and the patrollers also made off.
Among the fugitives there was two men an one woman killed and five wounded as far as known. The wounded persons were taken in charge and brough to the city, and th company in different bands arrived here yesterday afternoon and during the night– fifty having reported at Contraband Camp up to the his morning. Some of the wounded are not expected to live. One man received four balls in his head, face, shoulder and hip.”
Evening Star, 16 Jun 1862, page 3
Letitia Hamilton shows up in the White Marsh Records in 1868. In October, “Letitia, daughter of John and Betsy Hamilton, 18 years old” had converted to Catholicism and was baptized. The same day, she stood as a sponsor for the baptism of Eliza, the daughter of John Cameron and his wife, Matilda. The priests of White Marsh were inconsistent spellers, often from non-English spelling countries and using phonetic spelling. Hence, Betsy for Patsy. This record helps support the belief that the four names after John and Patsy in the Inventory are their children/grandchild.
In 1870, John and Patsy Hamilton are living in household of Violetta Harding, the daughter of Benjamin Lee, and heir of the estates. Patsy is given an estimated age of 50, while John is given an estimated age of 60. Despite their age, which for the formerly enslaved is quite elderly, they are working. Patsy is listed as a servant. John is listed as a farm hand. The next household listed is James Duvall, an overseer, who likely oversaw the tenant farmers, who were formerly enslaved.
By 1880, they are no longer listed in the census.
Prior to the war, John Hamilton had attempted an escape of his own from the estates of Benjamin Lee. In 1841, the Washington Daily Globe ran an advertisement for the return of John Hamilton. He was described as “about 21 years of age, five feet seven or eight inches high, dark complexion, large head and short neck”. Benjamin Lee offered a $100 reward for his return.
His clothing was described as “a dark kersey roundabout, white kersey pantaloons, blue and red striped home-spun waistcoat with metal buttons, and an old furred hat; he has other clothing and the probability is that he will change them”.
Kersey is a kind of coarse woolen cloth. Lee’s inventory showed he had about hundred sheep across his three estates with over 500 lbs of wool. Despite the wool production from the labor of the people he enslaved, there was no mention of a spinning wheel among his inventory. The kersey and the “home-spun” waistcoat was probably purchased from a local merchant or artisan rather than produced on the estate. Along with the world, was listed a small trunk with 16 pairs of stockings, 26 servant shirts, cloth for 12 coats and 6 servant frocks.
The color and the metal buttons of the homespun waistcoat suggests a more extravagant waistcoat than typically worn by a field laborer. The expense of the waistcoat suggested by the dye and metal buttons opens the possibility that John Hamilton is wearing a waistcoat handed down from Benjamin Lee; or that John Hamilton worked in the house and as such was dressed in his livery. Patricia Hunt-Hurst writes in her article about the clothing of the enslaved: “Unlike other items of clothing, vests [or waistcoats] were likely optional apparel, more decorative than functional, and thus rarely worn by slaves. They may have been a winter allotment for some plantations, perhaps as a hand-me-down or gift.”
During the war, on 12 July 1864, the Baltimore Sun ran a list of draftees for the Civil War. Listed in the Seventh District for Prince George’s County is the name Jno. Hamilton, slave of the estate of Benj. Lee. Due to his age, it is unlikely he enlisted; no record has been found.
Sources:
Fields Barbara Jeanne. Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground : Maryland during the Nineteenth Century. Yale University Press 1985.
Hunt-Hurst, Patricia. “‘Round Homespun Coat & Pantaloons of the Same’: Slave Clothing as Reflected in Fugitive Slave Advertisements in Antebellum Georgia.” The Georgia Historical Quarterly, vol. 83, no. 4, 1999, pp. 727–40. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40584195. Accessed 21 May 2023.
stories of Then 