A Slave No More

by David W. Blight

ISBN:9780156034517
About the book:
Slave narratives are extremely rare; very few are first-person
accounts by slaves who freed themselves. Now two newly
uncovered narratives, and the biographies of the men who wrote
them, join that exclusive group. Wallace Turnage was a teenage
field hand on an Alabama plantation, John Washington an urban
slave in Virginia. They never met. But both saw opportunity in the
chaos of the CivilWar, both escaped north, and both left
remarkable accounts of their flights to freedom. This book is more
than their narratives: working from painstakingly acquired records and sources for the lives of
heretofore unknown former slaves, the historian David W. Blight has discovered and
reconstructed their lives from slave childhood to black working-class stability in the North.
These are the untold biographies of two ordinary men, but they are also new answers to how four
million people moved from slavery to freedom.
A Slave No More is a major addition to the canon of American history.
About the author:

WALLACE TURNAGE (1846 1916) was born in Snow Hill, North Carolina, and spent his
adult life in New York City and Jersey City, New Jersey.
JOHN WASHINGTON (1838 1918), born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, worked as a house and
sign painter in Washington, D.C., after his escape. He retired to Cohasset, Massachusetts.
DAVID W. BLIGHT is the director of Yale Universitys Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of
Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition and a professor of American history. Among his books is
Race and Reunion, which won the Frederick Douglass Prize, the Lincoln Prize, and the Bancroft
Prize. He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.



Interview with David W. Blight,
author of A Slave No More
Until recently, there were only fifty-five post-Civil War slave narratives in existence. So when
historian David W. Blight was contacted about the discovery of two unedited narrativesit was
a major event. The handwritten journals of John Washington and Wallace Turnage have been
lovingly preserved by generations of family and friends, and now they are presented in A Slave
No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of
Emancipation. Blight has reconstructed the lives of these two men and their families, and adds
valuable commentary about slave life in the South during the period surrounding the Civil War.
A Slave No More is a major new addition to the canon of American history.
Q: In their memoirs, John Washington and Wallace Turnage document their early years and their
escapes from slavery but do not include details about their lives as freed men in the North. What
resources did you consult to reconstruct their lives and those of their families?
David W. Blight: I used census manuscripts; city directories; birth, marriage, and death
certificates; obituaries; city and regional maps; lots of newspapers; pension records; some church
records and early histories; writings and reports on infant mortality; and extended visits to
Washington, D.C., Fredericksburg, Mobile, Boston, Cohasset, and finally a great variety of photo
archives both online and especially at the New York Public Library.
Q: Turnage, who was born into slavery in North Carolina, was often subjected to the physical
brutality of the peculiar institution. As a result, his journal is much darker in tone than
Washingtons. Can this be interpreted as a reflection of one of the differences between rural and
city life for slaves prior to emancipation?
DB: Yes it can; and, yes, Turnages narrative is a tale of physical brutality in ways Washingtons
is not. There were great differences between the lives, chances, and mobility of urban as opposed
to plantation slaves. One of the great values of placing these two narratives together in the same
book is that they show us two very different kinds of experiences for slaves and two quite
different ways that slaves escaped to freedom during the Civil War.
Q: By presenting these two accounts together, does A Slave No More give an accurate
representation of what it was like to be black men in the South during the period surrounding the
Civil War?
DB: Accuracy is a tricky subject because slaves lived very different lives from one region to
another. But yes, these two narratives are remarkable windows into daily slave life, into family
formation, into the world of slave labor. We can also see here two stunning expressions of the
meaning of home and connectedness in these two stories. Moreover, we can learn a good deal
here about how the war itself affected slavery and slaves lives in two distinct regions of the
Southnorthern Virginia and cotton belt Alabama and Mississippi.
Q: You must have been surprised when you were contacted about the existence of these two
handwritten journals. Do you think it is likely that other authentic emancipation narratives are
out there, possibly being preserved in someones attic or in a black clamshell box?
DB: I was stunned, especially when the second one fell into my lap, and I realized what I had.
Yes, there will be more narratives, diaries, and other documents by and about American slaves
that will emerge from families, private collections, and even formal archives.
Q: The words of former slaves and free blacks are studied in high schools and colleges
throughout the country. Which slave narratives would you include on a required reading list?
DB: The two most important ones are Frederick Douglasss Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass, An American Slave and Harriet Jacobss Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. In my
introduction to A Slave No More I give a brief survey of the scope and character of the genre of
slave narratives, both pre- and post-emancipation.
Q: A Slave No More cites a wide variety of sources, including memoirs, novels, and historical
texts. What books do you recommend for people who want to read more about the historical,
social, and political aspects of this time?
DB: Well, the possible bibliography of slavery, emancipation, and the Civil War is vast. But if I
had to choose a handful or so of must-reads they would be: Ira Berlin, et. al., eds., Free At Last:
A Documentary History of Slavery, Freedom, and the Civil War; Benjamin Quarles, The Negro
in the Civil War; Eric Foner, Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction;
David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory; William L. Andrews,
To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760-1865; Ira
Berlin, Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves; and James Oakes, The
Radical and the Republican: Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and the Triumph of
Antislavery Politics.

Timeline to significant events
in A Slave No More
1619 Approximately 20 captive Africans are sold into slavery in Jamestown, Virginia.
May 20, 1838 John M. Washington is born in Fredericksburg, VA.
August 24, 1846 Wallace Turnage is born in the Tyson Marsh district of Green County near
Snow Hill, North Carolina.
1850Washington is "left alone" when his mother and four siblings are hired out to Staunton in
Western Virginia. He is 12 years old.
1857 In the Dred Scott decision, the U.S. Supreme Court denies citizenship to all slaves, ex
slaves, and descendants of slaves.
Spring 1860 Wallace Turnage is sold to Richmond slave trader Hector Davis. Davis soon sells
Turnage for $1,000 to Scottish-born James Chalmers, a cotton planter from Alabama.
Fall 1860 Turnage runs away for the first time.
November, 1860 Abraham Lincoln is elected president. In December South Carolina secedes
from the Union.
April 12, 1861 Confederate troops open fire on Fort Sumpter and the Civil War begins.
Summer, 1861 Turnage runs away a second time.
Late November, 1861 Turnage escapes toward Mississippi, his third attempt.
January 3, 1862 John Washington and Annie, a free black woman, are married.
1862 Washington is hired out to a hotel tavern called Shakespeare House in Fredericksburg.
April 6/7, 1862: The battle of Shiloh. More soldiers are killed than in all previous American wars
combined.
April 18, 1862 Yankee soldiers come to Fredericksberg and John Washington makes his
escape: He, his cousin James, and another free man walk to the Rappahannock, where Yankee
soldiers escort them to the north side and freedom. Washington is hired as a mess servant for the
division commander General Rufus King.
Late August October, 1862 Wallace Turnage makes his fourth escape attempt. This time
Chalmers takes Turnage to a slave trader in Mobile to be sold.
August, 1862Washington learns of a $300 reward offered for his head. He takes formal leave
of the army and leaves pregnant Annie in the care of women friends before traveling to the Sixth
Street Wharf in Washington D.C.
September 1, 1862 Washington's grandmother Molly, his aunt Maria and her four children join
him in D.C. All sleep on 14th Street.
September 22, 1862 Lincoln issues the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.
October 6, 1862 Annie gives birth in Fredericksburg to William Herbert Washington. Soon
after, they join John in D.C.
January 1, 1863 President Lincoln issues the final Emancipation Proclamation freeing all
slaves in territories held by Confederates.
November 19, 1863 Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address.
1864 John Washington first appears in a Washington city directory, his occupation listed as
waiter. He lived just two blocks southwest of the White House. Later he would make his living
as a house painter.
August, 1864 Turnage runs away for the fifth and final time, in what becomes a grueling
journey through the swamps outside Mobile to reach the Union troops stationed at Fort Powell.
Turnage serves as a cook for Lieutenant Juniors Thomas Turner.
March, 1865 John Washington's second son John Burnside dies, three months before his first
birthday.
April 15, 1865 Lincoln dies.
September 7, 1865Turnage was possibly present for the Maryland regiment's mustering out in
Baltimore.
December 6, 1865 The Thirteenth Amendment is ratified. Slavery is abolished.
January 12, 1866 James Arthur Washington was born to John and Annie. Sons Charles and
Benjamin would be born in 1870 and 1873.
January, 1870 Wallace Turnage moves to New York City. He lived in rooms at 526 Broome
Street, in the heart of what was then known as Little Africa, and worked as a waiter.
May 10, 1875 Wallace marries Sarah Ann Elizabeth Bird. Their first two children were born
in 1876 (Ida) and 1877 (Sarah). In 1879 they moved to Jersey City, where Wallace would spend
the rest of his life.
1881 Tennessee passes the first Jim Crow segregation laws. Over the next 15 years other
Southern states follow.
1885 The Statue of Liberty is assembled in New York Harbor. Wallace would have passed it
as he rode the ferry to work as a watchman in a variety of Wall Street buildings.
1889 Sarah Turnage dies at the age of 40, after giving birth to seven children, only three of
whom survived to adulthood Sarah, William (born 1881), and Lydia (born 1888). In
November Wallace married Sarah Bohannah, at the Abyssinian Baptist Church near Washington
Square.
1896 The U.S. Supreme Court rules that "separate but equal" facilities for blacks and whites
are legal in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision.
1900 William Washington moves to Boston and becomes a tailor and a shipping clerk. His
brother James, a railroad worker, moved to nearby Cohasset, where John and Annie moved when
they retired.
1903 Benjamin Washington received a Bachelor of Pedagogy from Howard University. He
taught science and history at a D.C. high school for the next forty years.
1916 Wallace Turnage dies. He is buried in Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.
1918 John Washington dies. He is buried in Woodside Cemetery in Cohasset, Massachusetts.
1928 William Turnage, Wallace's only surviving son, dies of cirrhosis. On his death
certificate he was identified as white.
1930s Lydia Turnage marries Thomas Connolly, the son of Irish immigrants, and moves to
Greenwich, Connecticut, where he works as a hotel bellman. She too passes as white, describing
herself as Portugee. She would keep her father's narrative her whole life, leaving it to her friend
Gladys Watt when she died childless.
1970s John's granddaughter Evelyn Washington Easterly comes into possession of John's
narrative.
Discussion Questions:
1. What is a slave narrative? Why did John Washington and Wallace Turnage write down the
stories of their lives as slaves and their escapes to freedom? Who were the readers they had in
mind? How do you think their intended audience might have affected what stories they chose to
tell and how they chose to tell them?

2. How do Washington and Turnage change as they grow up? What in their early lives or
their personalities or both might have contributed to their determination to escape? For example,
how did the time Washington spent as a slave in the city make him more likely and able to
escape?

3. How do Washingtons and Turnages life stories and the stories of their descendants illustrate
the importance of migration in the African American experience? Compare Washingtons and
Turnages migrations with their descendants movements. Compare and contrast African
American migration with that of the European immigrants with whom Blight imagines Turnage
must have come into contact in New York City.
4. What were the different factors President Lincoln had to consider in issuing the Emancipation
Proclamation? What were the earlier, less radical steps he took before issuing the proclamation?
How did the proclamation help the Union to win the war? How might it have hurt the Unions
efforts?

5. What is the significance of Washingtons story of being left behind at the circus (page 166)?
How does it relate to Washingtons story as a whole? Why do you think he included it in his
narrative?

6. How does the tone of Turnages narrative change in the section describing his final escape
from Mobile to Fort Powell? Why do you think Turnage seems to talk more about his feelings
and about God in this final passage? Do you feel more suspense in this part of the narrative?

7. Blight writes that "virtually all pre-emancipation slave narratives contained . . . numerous
testimonials, prefaces, and letters of endorsement by white abolitionists and supporters" (page
12). Do you think there are similarities between those kinds of prefaces and Blights own? How
does reading Blights biographies of Washington and Turnage beforehand affect the way you
read and understand their narratives?

8. Why has Blight preserved the narratives almost exactly as they were written (see Authors
Note)? What changes did he make to them, and why? Why is it important to scholars that
narratives like these be presented in their original form, including obvious errors?

9. Discuss Washingtons and Turnages writing style in the context of Blights description of the
evolution of slave narratives (Prologue). In which passages did you notice Washington and
Turnage using the conventions of fiction and biography? Which were the most novelistic parts of
the narratives? Did they remind you of any specific works of literature?

10. Both Turnage and Washington seem to have had a very detailed knowledge of the names and
tactical movements of the Union armies. Why do you think this is?

11. Blight believes that Washington and Turnage wrote these narratives in part to tell their
children where they had come from. Are there stories or written documents like this in your own
family? If so, compare and contrast those stories with these slave narratives.

12. Discuss the importance of Washingtons and Turnages literacy. How did it help them
escape? In what ways might these narratives have been different if Washington and Turnage
had been illiterate and told their stories as oral histories to an interviewer who transcribed them?

13. Discuss the importance of socioeconomic class in Washingtons and Turnages lives after
slavery. Were their post-slavery experiences less similar than their lives as slaves? How
might both of their lives have been different if they had not escaped to the North during the war?

14. Discuss Washingtons quote on page 194: I never would be a slave no more. I felt for the
first time in my life that I could now claim Every cent that I should work for as my own. Is it
significant that the first type of freedom Washington thinks of is the freedom to earn his own
money?

15. Turnages note to the reader at the end of his narrative expresses the hope that, when he dies,
he will by Gods assistance reach that Blistful abode, and triumph over the enemies of my soul
at last . . . I will then be free indeed. What is the significance of this note? Who are the enemies
of his soul? Discuss the role that Christianity played in Turnages and Washingtons lives and
the way they expressed their religious beliefs in their narratives.

16. Blight writes that in 2006 the Massachusetts Historical Commission described Washington as
the most notable person buried in the Cohassett, Massachusetts cemetery. Why is he considered
notable? Discuss Blights comment that this shows how Americans are finally becoming aware
that slavery left indelible marks, large and small, on the national psyche as well as on the
American landscape (page 112).

17. What did you learn from these narratives that you didnt already know about slavery,
abolition, and the Civil War?