On this episode of Our American Stories, in May 1861, three enslaved men slipped across the James River to Fort Monroe, seeking protection from Union troops. Their arrival forced General Benjamin Butler to make a choice that would change the course of the war. Instead of returning them to bondage, he declared them “contraband of war,” setting off a chain reaction that pushed Abraham Lincoln, Congress, and the Union Army toward emancipation.

Historian Kate Masur joins our regular contributor, Jon Elfner, to tell the story of how freedom began not with a proclamation, but with three men who refused to wait for it.

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