The Slave Roots of Memorial Day:

May 23, 1861, three slaves who had been forced into building battlements for the Confederate Army at Sewell’s Point on the Norfolk coast risked their lives in a daring escape to Fort Monroe, the Union stronghold that beckoned them from across the waters of Hampton Roads. Their names were Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory and James Townsend. Rowing in the dark, they didn’t know whether they would survive the crossing, be shot dead when they landed, be returned to their master, Confederate Col. Charles K. Mallory, or, as punishment, have their families sold in their stead. What they did know was that if they stayed, they would be transferred deeper into Dixie to the Carolinas, where still more battlements would have to be built to defend slavery using their slave labor. A line had to be drawn, and they drew it.

In seeking refuge with the Union Army, Baker, Mallory and Townsend unofficially ignited the movement of slaves emancipating themselves with their feet—the contraband movement—which would extend the aim of the war from maintaining the Union at all costs to a war for union and the freedom of the slaves. That last aim was the ultimate revenge on the South’s rebel government, formed, as it was, on the bedrock notion that one person had the right to own another person, for life.

In this picture: Slaves Entering Sally Port of Fort Monroe
FRANK LESLIE’S ILLUSTRATED NEWSPAPER, JUNE 8, 1861 (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

Full Story Found at: http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2014/05/how_did_fort_monroe_become_freedom_s_fort.1.html