During the Civil War, Maryland's Eastern Shore faced deep divisions and lasting change. In the years before the war, enslaved African Americans from the region actively sought freedom through the Underground Railroad with help from conductors such as Harriet Tubman and other sympathetic residents. During the conflict, hundreds of formerly enslaved and free Black men from the Eastern Shore enlisted in the U.S. Colored Troops after those units were authorized in January 1863 with President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. After the war, Black veterans returned to establish towns and emancipation celebrations that continued to shape Eastern Shore culture. At the same time, some white residents remained loyal to the Union while others supported the Confederacy, leading Union authorities to arrest newspaper publishers suspected of disloyalty. Watermen used the region's winding rivers and waterside towns to run the Federal blockade and carry supplies to Confederate forces. Although major combat largely bypassed the area, families with loyalties on both sides endured the loss of relatives on distant battlefields and the wider hardships of war.