10. Confederate leaders encountered attempts to entice their slaves to escape
As Confederate troops marched into Pennsylvania, several officers reported incidents of abolitionists enticing the slaves accompanying the army to escape. Several Confederate officers, including Major General William Dorsey Pender, wrote home that their slaves approached the invasion with an enthusiasm shared with most of the troops. Of one of his own personal servants, a slave named Joe, Pender wrote, “Joe enters the invasion with much gusto, and is quite active in looking up hidden property”. The reference to “hidden property” is to a new activity assigned to the slaves in Pennsylvania, that of locating and rounding up escaped slaves and free blacks.
As large portions of Pennsylvania came under the control of Lee’s battalions, troops and their slaves searched for and captured both. They were placed, under guard, with the labor parties of the Confederate Army. Robert E. Lee issued Special Order 72 on June 22, 1863, prohibiting his men from destroying private property. He ordered his foraging parties to either pay for or issue receipts for the property they seized. The order did not apply to escaped slaves, and the Confederates did not differentiate between slaves and free blacks in some instances. Over 100 blacks were taken from several Pennsylvania towns and villages and sent south with Lee’s army when it withdrew.
Read More: This Confederate Soldier Fought to Free Slaves.