In June 1862, amidst news from the Civil War battlefront, theWorcester Daily Spyannounced the “arrival of a ‘Contraband’”—a slave who had absconded to the safety of Union lines in search of freedom. The refugee had just come from New Bern, North Carolina, where he had “rendered important service to Gen. Burnside, in the capacity of pilot.” In return for his aid, “he was sent north with his wife and child,” bearing “recommendations from officers high in rank.” The newspaper editor appealed to readers to consider hiring him, as “such a man certainly deserves immediate employment here—a...

As chattering telegraphs relayed the news of the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter to towns, villages, and cities across the nation, many Americans, both North and South, seemed to welcome the news with a sense of relief. In retrospect, their reaction seems an odd way to greet the opening of what would be the bloodiest war in American history. But for those who had experienced crises that had threatened to rip the Republic apart for decades, the coming of war offered a long-awaited denouement that would finally settle issues fundamental to the future of the United States.

While many welcomed...

In the fall and early winter of 1861, the 15th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry regrouped at Poolesville, Maryland, veterans of the disastrous battle at Ball’s Bluff. The unit had sustained well over a hundred casualties in what would prove to be a mere taste of the bloodshed they would suffer during the course of the war. On Christmas Eve 1861, Isaiah Allen, a slave in Leesburg, Virginia—across the Potomac from Poolesville—took advantage of his owner’s holiday revelries. With a fellow slave, he swam across the river and escaped to the safety of the Worcester County regiment.¹

Similarly, Allen Parker,...

Worcester’s incensed soldiers and citizenry soon responded to the crisis in New Bern with more than words of moral indignation. The calamity precipitated by Governor Stanly resulted in the first of what ultimately would be hundreds of New Bern’s former slaves resettling in Worcester. Their story reveals intricate networks of support that the city’s tiny, but activist, black community provided southern refugees. In addition, from the spring of 1862 forward, New Bern became a focal point for Worcesterites—both black and white—who wished to aid the plight of freed slaves. The arrival in New Bern of another Worcester County...

The morning of 4 July 1865 was greeted in Worcester with an anticipation and excitement not experienced in years. For the previous two months, townspeople—from schoolchildren to captains of industry—had prepared for a celebration worthy of the momentous Union victory. The city commemorated Independence Day “in a manner worthy of the new glories that cluster around the natal day of the republic from the trials, sacrifices, and victories of the last four years,” wroteWorcester Daily Spyeditor John Denison Baldwin. The celebration was “commensurate with the new promise of national freedom and dignity assured by the overthrow...

On the afternoon of 22 June 1891, members of the Mount Olive Baptist Church gathered to lay the cornerstone for their new church on John Street in Worcester. Joined by representatives from the city’s two other black churches as well as white Baptist congregations, church members and their supporters reflected on the long journey from the South to the North, from slavery to freedom, that many of them had made.

Amidst prayers, invocations, and joyful hymn singing, George C. Whitney, a member of the First Baptist Church, presented a historical address. As a teenager in 1862, Whitney had joined the...

Historian William McFeely, inSapelo’s People, his masterful portrait of a Georgia Sea Island community, writes, “African-Americans’ anger may derive as much from the broken promises of Reconstruction as from slavery itself. So much promise was held out, so much withdrawn, that the sting is still there.” While referring specifically to the federal government’s broken promises, McFeely’s assertion could easily apply to northern communities such as Worcester, the destination of southern migrants who journeyed to the city in search of equal treatment and full citizenship. Worcester held out its own set of pledges to fleeing war refugees and freedpeople, which...