Editing Underground Railroad (section)

====Union Navy and Emancipation====

[[File:Company of colored troops. (3110840538).jpg|thumb|Free Blacks and former slaves who escaped slavery signed up to fight in the Union Army and Navy.]]

The Secretary of the Navy during the Civil War was [[Gideon Welles]] and in September of 1861 Welles declared that enslaved and free African Americans could enlist at the lowest rating of "Boy" in the Union Navy. Union vessels located in Southern ports received numbers of runaways who fled slavery by way of small boats to vessels docked in Union controlled territories. Benjamin Gould recorded in his journal that by September 22, 1862, eight freedom seekers had arrived at the [[USS Cambridge (1860)|USS ''Cambridge'']] and that 20 more runaways arrived two weeks later. One of the escaped freedom seekers listed was William Gould, who later joined the Union (U.S.) Navy and fought against the Confederacy from 1862 to 1865. The Union vessel [[USS Hartford (1858)|USS Harftford]] helped to liberate enslaved people while going up the [[Mississippi River]]. [[Bartholomew Diggins]], who served aboard the vessel, recalled the events of liberating the enslaved. He said: "we picked [up] many negroes [sic] slaves who would come out to the ships in small boats at every place we anchored." Other Union vessels that helped to liberate the enslaved were the USS Essex and USS Iroquois. A few Union soldiers and sailors returned escaped slaves back to their enslavers.<ref>{{cite web |title=African Americans in the U.S. Navy During the Civil War |url=https://www.history.navy.mil/browse-by-topic/wars-conflicts-and-operations/civil-war-archive1/african-americans-in-the-u-s--navy-during-the-civil-war.html#:~:text=The%20Navy%20drew%20upon%20these,of%20the%20Navy%27s%20enlisted%20manpower. |website=Naval History and Heritage Command |access-date=19 September 2024}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Stanford professor finds inspiration, fortitude from the diaries of his great-grandfather, who escaped slavery |url=https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2021/06/finding-fortitude-diaries-escaped-slave |website=Stanford Report |publisher=Stanford University |access-date=20 September 2024}}</ref> By the end of the war, 179,000 formerly enslaved and free Black Americans had fought in the Union Army, and 21,000 had fought in the Union Navy.<ref>{{cite web |title=Black Soldiers in the U.S. Military During the Civil War |url=https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/blacks-civil-war#:~:text=By%20the%20end%20of%20the,19%2C000%20served%20in%20the%20Navy. |website=National Archives and Records Administration | date=August 15, 2016 |access-date=20 September 2024}}</ref>  

From the [[American Revolutionary War]], through the [[War of 1812]], and then the American Civil War, the Underground Railroad contributed to hundreds and sometimes thousands of escapes by African Americans.{{sfn|Hudson|2015|pp=2, 9–10}}