At the outbreak of the Civil War, he offered his services to the Confederate army and was assigned to the staff of General Jackson as a topographic engineer of the Valley District, Department of Virginia. The Library also holds a 27,000-item manuscript collection with diaries, correspondence, and notebooks compiled by Hotchkiss.īorn and educated in New York State, Hotchkiss moved to Virginia's Shenandoah Valley in 1847. His collection is the jewel among the more than 2,200 Civil War maps in the Library, containing 341 field notebooks, detailed reconnaissance maps, and finely drawn after-battle maps, some annotated by Jackson, Lee, and others, indicating their use in planning campaigns. Lee, Richard Ewell, Jubal Early, and John B. Jedediah Hotchkiss, a topographic engineer in the Confederate States Army, prepared maps and provided geographic intelligence for Thomas J. The printed slavery code exhibited here was published on March 17, 1862, just one month before slavery in the District ended and the laws became of historical interest only. An Emancipation Claims Commission hired a Baltimore slave trader to assess the value of each freed slave, and awarded compensation for 2,989 slaves. Slavery in the District of Columbia ended on April 16, 1862, when President Lincoln signed a law that provided for compensation to slave owners. That such a book exists indicates something of the volume and routine character of legal work surrounding transactions in human property. It is almost certainly a “practice book,” produced within a law firm for the use of its attorneys and clerks, who could refer to it when drafting contracts and legal briefs. The manuscript volume shown with the published slave code is arranged by topic, listing relevant sections of Maryland and District of Columbia laws as well as the applicable court decisions. By 1860 the District of Columbia was home to 11,131 free blacks and 3,185 slaves. Free blacks were permitted to live in the city and to operate private schools. Slaves were permitted to hire out their services and to live apart from their masters. Additional laws on slavery and free blacks were then made by the District, and by Southern standards its slave codes were moderate. When the District of Columbia was established in 1800, the laws of Maryland, including its slave laws, remained in force. All codes also had sections regulating free blacks, who were still subject to controls on their movements and employment and were often required to leave the state after emancipation. ![]() Since marriage is a form of a contract, no slave marriage had any legal standing. ![]() Slaves, being property, could not own property or be a party to a contract. All slave codes made slavery a permanent condition, inherited through the mother, and defined slaves as property, usually in the same terms as those applied to real estate. Every slave state had its own slave code and body of court decisions. The main thing I am unsure of at this moment, is how to succeed in myself without being hurt by the change.Slavery in the United States was governed by an extensive body of law developed from the 1660s to the 1860s. I can’t help feeling as though I’m the only one left behind in the cloud of dust whilst everyone around me tramples and steadily excels forward.Īnd yet, I feel almost accomplished that I’ve dealt so well with this odd transition and, thus far, emerged relatively unscathed. What happened? At which point did things get so intertwined? Assurance, comfort, Dad, acquaintanceships, the garden, stability, the realization that I can stick to goals if I keep steady minded. My relationship with the familiar has but almost perished, and I’m left with a furrowed brow and an aching sense of contradiction in my stomach. Life has pulled a completely unexpected 360º on me in the last year or so. ![]() I feel like my life has gone momentarily crumbly, like a block of feta cheese.Įverything I was sure of beforehand- I am unsure of now.
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