Oxford Wharf

After the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863, African Americans on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Delaware sought freedom for themselves and their families through service in the Union army, even though the proclamation freed no slaves in Maryland. Union Gen. William Birney and his staff raised seven regiments of United States Colored Troops in Maryland, and the Maryland General Assembly offered bounty money both to each man who enlisted and to owners who freed their slaves for service. Many enslaved people freed themselves to join the Federal forces, and recruitment on the Eastern Shore succeeded so well that Oxford became a principal embarkation point for United States Colored Troops in the area. On September 18, 1863, the steamboat Champion left Oxford wharf with new recruits bound for Camp Stanton on the Patuxent River at Benedict, where they trained for war. Quaker James Dixon recalled slave owners and others standing silent and thoughtful on the wharf and beach as the steamer pulled away and the people on board waved goodbye and sang jubilant hymns that became songs of deliverance from slavery. The 19th United States Colored Troops, recruited from African Americans living there, was organized at Camp Stanton between December 25, 1863, and January 16, 1864, later served in the Overland Campaign in Virginia, first guarding wagon trains during the Battle of the Wilderness, then taking part in combat after the Siege of Petersburg began, including the Battle of the Crater, before joining the pursuit to Appomattox Court House, serving later in Texas, and being mustered out on January 15, 1867.

Oxford, Maryland · United States