Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era

by James M. McPherson

It seemed only a matter of time before real blood would be shed. When the time came the place was Christiana, a Pennsylvania village near the Maryland border, about halfway between Philadelphia and another village named Gettysburg. A Quaker community that had extended a welcome to fugitives, Christiana was anything but peaceable or friendly on September 11, 1851. That morning a Maryland slaveowner accompanied by several relatives and three deputy marshals came seeking two fugitives who had escaped two years earlier and were reported to be hiding in the house of another black man. They found the fugitives, along with two dozen armed black men vowing to resist capture. Two Quakers appeared and advised the slave hunters to retreat for their own good. The owner refused, declaring that “I will have my property, or go to hell.” Shooting broke out. When it was over the slaveowner lay dead and his son seriously wounded (two other whites [Page 85] and two blacks were lightly wounded). The blacks disappeared into the countryside; their three leaders sped on the underground railroad to Canada.12