Wikimedia Commons/Hartford, Conn. : The War Photograph & Exhibition Co., No. 21 Linden Place
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Mason Island’s 1,200 Souls Escape Slavery’s Chains
Theodore Roosevelt Island holds traces of a Civil War refugee camp that sheltered over 1,200 formerly enslaved people. In May 1864, the Union Army established Camp Greene on what was then called Mason Island.
Families who had escaped slavery found safety here, building homes and schools while men worked as laborers and teamsters for the war effort. The camp became Washington D.C. ‘s largest contraband settlement, a bustling community that lasted through war’s end…