Queenstown

In 1861 Queenstown, like most of the Eastern Shore, was a slaveholding community that regarded the impending conflict with concern and fear, and when war erupted families were torn apart by conflicting loyalties, with some members serving in the Confederate army and others in the Union. The war took a toll on white Queenstown residents, and with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the 1864 Maryland constitution’s abolition of slavery, many slave owners lost everything. Financial problems forced the proprietor of Bowlingly to sell all of his property and belongings to pay his debts, and the local economy did not recover until the end of the century. In 1863, recruitment of blacks for the United States Colored Troops began in Queen Anne’s County at Queenstown and Kent Island; Frederick Emory wrote in 1880 that it led to “the running away” of many of the slaves, and that twenty of Wm. B. Paca’s were the first to leave but were recaptured. In February 1864, a presidential order required that when a slave of a loyal master was drafted and mustered into the service of the United States, the master would receive a certificate, the slave would be free, and the bounty of one hundred dollars payable for each drafted man would be paid to the person to whom he had owed service or labor at the time of muster.

Queenstown, Maryland · United States