The Courthouse

With the arrival of the Union army in the spring of 1862, hundreds of enslaved people in the Fredericksburg area fled to freedom, and the Union army turned the basement of the city courthouse into temporary barracks for these refugees. One Union officer recalled that the former slaves “seemed as happy as though they owned the town.” After the war, the “Freedman’s Court” met every Friday afternoon in the courthouse to decide civil cases brought by African-American citizens. During the war, Federals also used the courthouse cupola as a signal station and observation post, and from there Union General Darius Couch watched the futile attacks against Marye’s Heights on December 13, crying out, “Oh great God! see how our men, our poor fellows, are falling!” General Irvin McDowell reported on May 5, 1862, that enslaved people were flocking to the Federal army by hundreds, with as many as 80 leaving at one time from the river plantations, and that scarcely a slaveholder in Fredericksburg had not lost one or more. Union General O. O. Howard also watched the battle from the cupola; after the war he led the Freedman’s Bureau, whose local headquarters were in the Farmer’s Bank building, and Howard University in Washington D.C. was later named in his honor.

Fredericksburg, Virginia · United States