GDG- Blacks at Gettysburg

[Tom Ryan]

<<Back to Tom's question as to if there is any know count of the number of
blacks with the AOP, I've never seen one.  But there are enough references
in various acounts to black servants - not only officers, but sometimes
company enlisted men chipping in to hire someone to do the cooking - that
given how long the AOP had spend in an area where such "help" was easy to
find and hire at very nominal cost, I wouldn't be surprised if the number
was fairly substantial.  I think it's just that these people was almost all
unofficial, and unrecorded, and therefore now somewhat lost to history.>>

Jim, I think you are right about this.  As you say, there have been many
references to blacks in camp on the Union side, and certainly there was more
than enough to keep them occupied performing as servants and laborers, as
well as cooks, transportation workers, teamsters, etc.  We probably will
only be able to speculate, or, at best, estimate the total number.  I
thought Gregory Coco might address blacks to a certain extent in his
"Gettysburg:  The Aftermath of a Battle," however non of the standard terms
such as African-Americans, blacks, Negroes, contrabands or slaves shows up
in the index.

Given the strong desire for freedom, you have to wonder how many of those
estimated 6,000 blacks traveling with the ANV actually were able to escape
during the campaign.  Over that almost two-month period, there must have
been many opportunities to slip away.

I know early in the campaign down in Virginia, Col. Sharpe's BMI people were
gathering vital information about Lee's disposition and movements from
escaped or captured slaves (some during the battle at Brandy Station).
There is less evidence of that once the armies came North.

Anyone have any incidences of the ANV blacks escaping or being captured by
Union troops during the Gettysburg Campaign?

Tom