African American Recruitments into the Union Army

Subtitle: Talbot Led All the Counties of Maryland
During the Civil War nearly 180,000  African Americans served of which almost 80,000 were from states that remained in the Union.  Of this number 8,718 were from Maryland and Talbot County led all counties of Maryland in enlistments.

A recruiting station was set up in Oxford and steamers transported recruits out of Oxford, Easton and St. Michaels to Baltimore where they would be mustered in.  The recruitment also involved Union soldiers going throughout the county coming onto local farms to enlist enslaved and free Blacks.  Many enslaved persons and free Black farm workers dropped their farm implements where they stood and marched off with the recruiters to the dismay of their overseers. However, most of the recruitments of enslaved persons was actually conducted at night to avoid interference with or reprisals from the enslaved person’s owners or overseers.

Contrary to popular belief, many slave owners were Unionists with the best examples being Henry Holliday Goldsborough of Easton and Governor Thomas Holliday Hicks of Dorchester county.  Goldsborough was the  President of the Maryland Senate in 1861-62 and Hicks was the Governor of Maryland from 1858 until January 1862.  Both Hicks and Goldsborough had become staunch Unionists and are greatly credited with tamping down Maryland’s secession sentiment in early 1861.

Slave owners who offered their enslaved persons for enlistment were eligible for $300 in compensation for their lost labor but only if they were deemed loyal to the Union.  Claims from owners were presented to a Board which decided if compensation would be granted.  Slave  owners were required to file an “Oath of Allegiance to the Government of the United States,” proof of title and a deed of manumission.   Upon acceptance the enslaved person would be “forever free.”