Alexandria's Freedmen's Cemetery A Legacy of Freedom
At the beginning of the Civil War, Federal troops secured Alexandria as Union territory. Former slaves, called contrabands, poured into Alexandria to get protection from their former masters. Because of overcrowding, mortality rates were high. By March 1864, authorities had seized an undeveloped parcel of land on South Washington Street and transformed it into a cemetery for African Americans. Between 1864 and 1868, the authorities buried over 1,700 contrabands and freedmen there. People left the cemetery undisturbed for nearly eighty years and eventually forgot about it. The graveyard was rediscovered in 1996 and has now been preserved as a monument to the courage and sacrifice of those buried within it. Author and researcher Char McCargo Bah recounts the stories of those men and women and the search for their descendants.