Contrabands

“The war in Virginia- contrabands coming into the Federal camp. The [African American] furnishes, in his various phases of existence, wonderful studies for the artist and philosopher. Never, perhaps, has a race seen such a moment as during the Civil War, when the chains of bondage were breaking from the limbs of 4,000,000 of men. The distant roar of battle was to them a sound of deliverance. With all the uncouth, odd and queer manifestations of joy they prepared to reach the camp of the delivering Yanks. Yoking together most incongruous teams before the farm wagons of their fled masters, with ass and ox and horse, with household gear queerly assorted, with useless truck and little that could rarely serve them, they started for the Promised Land, and might often have been seen coming in as our artist, a most close student of nature, depicted them, with his usual felicity of portraiture."— Frank Leslie, 1896

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