John Washington’s Civil War: A Slave Narrative
John Washington was one of the many unsung heroes of the Civil War. A young, highly intelligent slave, he was the son of a white Orange County, Virginia, planter and Sarah, a domestic slave. Amid the denigrating context of involuntary servitude, but with his mother’s encouragement, he learned to read and developed very marketable managerial skills. Given his aptitudes, Washington was hired out by Catherine Taliaferro as a factory worker processing tobacco “twists.” In that endeavor he was permitted to retain compensation for work exceeding a specific production quota. He appreciated the relative “freedom” the factory afforded, in contrast to the more monitored and degrading plantation labor. At the beginning of the war, he was again hired out for his owner’s benefit — in the capacity of a Fredericksburg hotel/restaurant steward of the slave staff. Washington recognized the opportunity for escape offered by the conflict, with the proximity of Federal forces and potential freedom in the nearby District of Columbia. His masters attempted to convince him that the Yankees were malicious devils at whose hands he would meet an evil fate. Washington perceived the slave owners’ deception and self-interest and availed himself of the opportunity to escape as soon as the Federals occupied Fredericksburg in April 1862. He led the slave staff to the hotel roof, pointed out the Union troops, declared freedom was at hand and served a celebratory toast. Crossing the Rappahannock, he seized the freedom offered by a contraband proclamation. He then served as a camp laborer, aide and guide to a captain in the 30th New York Volunteers. Washington provided such useful services as identifying and locating Confederate sympathizers in Union-occupied Fredericksburg and scouting for the infantry. He then settled in wartime Washington with his wife, child, mother and grandmother. In 1872 Washington wrote his narrative, Memorys of the Past. Although not crafted in a literary style on par with that of Frederick Douglass, the memoirs are equally profound as a vivid, heartfelt account of those many African-Americans who, through their own initiative, maximized opportunities for liberty and progress within the constraints of white subjugation and prejudice. Crandall Shifflett, a professor at Virginia Tech, uses minimal editing to preserve the context and vitality of the original manuscript. Comprehensive commentary and citations skillfully place Washington’s narrative within the context of the larger military conflict, while thoroughly addressing the specific perspective of an urban, domestic slave in Fredericksburg. Those readers familiar with Yale Professor David Blight’s own work with the Washington documents, A Slave No More, will find Dr. Shifflett’s edition an insightful, detailed complement. John Washington’s Civil War is a much-needed, profoundly significant primary source, valuable to both the history enthusiast and scholar. Reviewer: Kemp Burpeau Kemp Burpeau has a Ph.D. in American history. He served on the North Carolina Historical Commission, is a local government attorney and teaches at Mount Olive College. He is the author of God’s Showman, a study of American missionary John Graham Lake.
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Illustrated, bibliography, index, 128 pp., 2008, Louisiana State University Press,