Lives on the Line

Lives on the Line. . , "Between our works and the house... was a semi-circle of negro quarters, and in front of these little frame and log houses the artillerymen had backed up their caissons and ammunition wagons to conceal them as much as possible from the enemy." , Capt. Augustus C. Brown, 4th N.Y. Heavy Artillery, May 30, 1864, Delphia… Charles… Hester… Daniel… Zekiel… Tom. These are but a few of the dozens of enslaved individuals whose labor fueled the productivity of Rural Plains for generations. For the 37 Black men, women, and children held here in bondage at the outbreak of the Civil War, the stakes could not have been higher than when the US Army anchored its battle lines amid the plantation's slave cabins in late May 1864., The Sheltons housed their enslaved workforce in eight simple dwellings, a cluster of which once stood before you in a horseshoe configuration. These meager wooden quarters stood in stark contrast to the Sheltons' stately brick manor. They offered shelter but little else for the enslaved servants, cooks, and other skilled persons living within earshot of their owners' every demand., During the war, the proximity of Northern soldiers tempted some individuals to escape to freedom. Frank and Billy fled during the 1862 Seven Days Campaign, while Jo, the Shelton family's butler, escaped behind Union lines during the 1864 battle here. For those who could not leave, their liberation would not come until ultimate Union victory, ten long months away., (captions) , No known images of the Sheltons' enslaved people exist. Like the group pictured here at an army base in neighboring New Kent County, a few of the Sheltons' enslaved workers sought their emancipation with the arrival of the Union Army. Library of Congress, A portion of Rural Plains' slave cabins are faintly visible on the left side of this wartime sketch. With the continuation of agriculture at Rural Plains, rudimentary structures like the slave cabins and other outbuildings were reused, dismantled, or allowed to collapse over time. Library of Congress