The three brick cabins at Ben Venue are tangible connections to the enslaved people of Rappahannock County before and during the Civil War. In July-August 1862, part of the Union Army of Virginia occupied Rappahannock County and camped on these grounds, and slaves on nearby farms fled especially to Gen. Robert H. Milroy’s camp in Woodville, where Milroy, known as an abolitionist, put them to work as laborers, cooks, and teamsters, formed some of the men into a pioneer company, and where the 27th Indiana Infantry organized former slaves into a mock military unit that drilled near Amissville. The next year, Eliza Brown, born enslaved on a plantation a mile east of here, became a cook for Union Gen. George A. Custer. Many slaves escaped to Union lines here and elsewhere, and some former bondsmen served in the U.S. Army as United States Colored Troops after the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863. Federal soldiers later noted a marked decrease in the number of slaves from 1862, in part because the Confederate government had requisitioned 150 Rappahannock County slaves to labor for the Southern Army. The Ben Venue cabins are among the most sophisticated examples of slave quarters in Virginia, contrasting with the shacks or log cabins that housed most enslaved people, but better housing did not alter slavery’s essential character, and many ran away when opportunities arose. In 1860, the United States Slave Schedules for Rappahannock County listed 414 fugitives out of 3,120 slaves. African American soldiers with Rappahannock County connections included Howard Campbell of the 22nd U.S. Colored Troops, Charles Davenport of the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry, Lewis Dixon of the 5th U.S. Colored Troops, William Newby of the 5th U.S. Colored Troops, James Arthur Payne of the 27th U.S. Colored Troops, and James Whip of the 5th Massachusetts Colored Cavalry.
