Embroidery "Contraband 1862"

An abolitionist made this small, unfinished embroidery during the Civil War (1861–65), the year before the Emancipation Proclamation made slavery illegal in the rebellious Southern states. The composition is most likely derived from a political print of the era. At the outset of the Civil War, the North’s goal was not the abolition of slavery, but rather the preservation of the Union. It was a law in the North that runaway slaves, called “contraband,” were to be returned, although some Northern generals refused to do so. At first Lincoln himself wavered on this issue, but the fate of runaways became a political issue after the Union army occupied the Sea Islands off the coast of South Carolina in November 1861 and discovered ten thousand abandoned slaves. An outpouring of support for these abandoned slaves and other slaves who had escaped persuaded Lincoln to add emancipation as a goal of the Civil War and led directly to his Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863.