Did Louisville have a contraband camp during the Civil War?

/ Kraig McNutt

Yes.

Camp Name
Louisville, Kentucky
Location
Kentucky, Louisville
Superintendent(s)/Aid worker(s)
John Palmer, Rev. Thomas James
Population
1860: 12,311 (total black population in Jefferson County)
1870: 19,146 (total black population in Jefferson County)
Camp Description
De facto slave trade thrived in Louisville, even with Union presence, with many Missouri and Kentucky slaves being sold at Louisville slave marts. Despite federal orders, state officials allowed bounty hunters into the contraband camps. In December 1863, slave trade at Louisville becomes in effect officially authorized when Gen. Schofield declared that owners loyal to the Union could seize “female slaves and males not fit for military duty.” In Spring 1864 the Union government finally prevails over local Kentuckians to begin the official enlistment of black soldiers without the permission of their owners. Recruitment spikes when the news that enlistment means freedom spreads, but it ebbs when black recruits’ families are turned away from camp. When soldiers’ families are permitted Union protection, the AME missionary Rev. Thomas James legally marries black refugees in a flurry to secure the freedom of women and children there, later admitting that some of these unions were “mere form” but secured the greater good–the freedom of families. As the distinction between freedpeople and fugitive slaves blurred, officials arbitrarily jailed all black people without passes and sold them to the highest bidder. Active religious life at camp, with Sunday school and religious services twice a week. Black women find employment at the hospitals constructed at Louisville.
Primary Source
  • Elijah P. Marrs, Life and History of the Rev. Elijah P. Marrs, First Pastor of Beargrass Baptist Church, and Author. The Bradley & Gilbert Company. Louisville, KY. 1885. pp. 19, 31-35, 68-69
  • AFIC Testimony of Major D.C. Fitch and Capt. M.H. Jewett. [Nov. 1863], filed with O-328 1863, Letters Received, ser. 12, RG 94 [K-92] (in DOS 591-93)
  • Genl. J.M. Schofield to Lt. Col. J.O. Broadhead, 9 Dec. 1863, M-927 1863, Letters Received, ser. 2786, Provost Marshal General, Dept. of the MO, RG 393 Pt. 1 [FSSP: C-198] (quoted in DOS 411)
  • Amy Moore Affidavit, 14 Aug. 1865, enclosing affidavit of Amy Moore, [14? Aug. 1865]. Unregistered Letters Received, ser. 1209, Louisville KY Supt., RG 105 [FSSP: A-4515] (In DOS 566-568)
Secondary Source
FSSP: DOS 411, 493, 505-508, 514-516
WTG-US 61, 626-30
Citation: Cooper, Abigail, “Interactive Map of Contraband Camps” (2014). History Digital Projects. 1.
https://repository.upenn.edu/hist_digital/1

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