Contrabands
While the nation (as Abraham Lincoln said) was “engaged in a great civil war,” emancipation was considered by many a moral imperative and by others a political expedience.
After a great Union victory at Antietam, Lincoln delivered the death blow to slavery.
St. Augustine had been captured by Federal Navy and Marine forces in March of 1862. Enslaved people here were in the legal limbo of being “contrabands.”
This illustration shows Union soldiers and officers parading in the Plaza. The image includes the Constitution Monument, the Cathedral, and the Court House (Governor's House).