Under the freedom tree
(Book)

Includes bibliography (last page).

One May night in 1861, three slaves escaped a Confederate camp and rowed across the harbor to the Union line. Frank Baker, James Townsend, and Shepard Mallory didn't know what they would find across the water, but they knew it had to be better than what they left behind. Union General Benjamin Butler considered the men's plight. The Fugitive Slave Act required him to return the runaways to their master. But what if they were declared "contraband of war"? Then the Union could claim them as enemy property and protect them. Frank, James, and Shephard, the first "contrabands" of the Civil War opened the door for thousands of other runaway slaves. This is their story and the story of the beginning of slavery's end.