| Location | New Town, Maryland |
|---|---|
| Document Type | Endorsement |
| Names Mentioned | – |
| Date | November 8, 1863 |
| Document Title | General William Birney's Endorsement Refuting the Slaveowner's Charges |
| Document Description | In this letter, General William Birney refutes the accusations that he and other Union recruiters were forcing men to enlist against their will. He finishes this repudiation with a note on loyalty, stating that “Western Shore slave owners” were most often disloyal, accusing them of killing his Lieutenant, poisoning four of his soldiers, harboring rebel spies, and running the blockade. (From Free At Last, 346-347) |
| Transcription |
Newtown, Md. Nov. 8/63. The authors of the within letter are reckless in their statements. I intend to recruit up the Patuxent but never have done so. Above Benedict, where my stockade camp is located, there never has been a recruiting station or party. The "steamboat of them" (negro troops) contained three colored soldiers placed on board to prevent slaveholders from burning the boat. There was one officer on board. The object of the trip was to observe the landings, with a view to future recruiting under order No. 329 and to give the regular pilot of the boat the advantage of the instruction of a Patuxent river pilot who accompanied him. There was no "harrassing," "plundering" or "abducting," terms which I understand Senator Johnson's correspondents to apply to the Government recruiting of Colored Troops for the defence of the country. The threats to return the next day and “carry them off by force” are the coinage of Messers Hodgkin and his associations. The officer & men on the boat fully understood they were not to return the next day. The boat has never returned there nor has there since that date been a colored soldier or an officer of the U.S. Colored Troops up the Patuxent above Benedict for any purpose whatever. The Western Shore slave owners are more unscrupulous than the same class elsewhere. Two of them killed my Lieutenant, the unfortunate and noble-hearted White, others helped off the murderers, nearly all of them justified the murder; and now, we have strong grounds for suspecting that four of my soldiers, who have died suddenly—after an hour's convulsions—have been poisoned by the emissaries of these men. When there is sufficient loyalty and public virtue on the Western Shore to make it unpopular to run the blockade or to harbor rebel officers and spies, it will be time enough for its inhabitants to claim peculiar privileges from Government and to oppose the increase of the U.S. Army. At present, nearly all the loyal men here are among the class which I have been sent here to recruit. William Birney |
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[Author (if known)], Documents from the Freedmen and Southern Society Project, [Date (if known)], Enduring Connections: Exploring Delmarva’s Black History, Nabb Research Center, Salisbury University.
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