On Hallowed Ground by Robert M Poole Page A

desperately in need of shelter. 59
    “The houses are left standing,” Greene argued. “There are enough to provide quarters for from 500 to 750 field hands with
a very small outlay for additions and improvements.” Why not move the former slaves to Arlington?

    The force of contrabands, males and females, now idle in this city & a dead weight on the Government can be employed to a
    very great advantage in cultivating the above lands, raising corn & millet, and cutting hay …
    The families need not be separated, as they can still be united and may be fully as well provided for as their present quarters
    in this city and at less expense. Besides this there is the decided advantage afforded to them of the salutary effects of
    good pure country air and a return to their former healthy avocation as field hands under much happier auspices than heretofore
    which must prove more beneficial to them and will tend to prevent the increase of diseases now prevalent among them. I also
    propose establishing a large vegetable garden South of the Potomac to be cultivated by the younger Contrabands and others
    of them who are unable to do heavy field work. The proceeds of such labor would be considerable …
    The arrangements I propose will not only in my opinion conduce to the sanitary & moral improvement of the Contrabands, but
    it will save the Government an immense amount of money … I respectfully suggest that the matter should be decided within
    the next forty-eight hours. It will be absolutely necessary to commence any farming operations for the present season otherwise
    it will be too late to plant. 60
    Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton approved Greene’s proposal on the spot, and on May 22, 1863, Maj. Gen. Samuel P. Heintzelman
issued General Orders No. 28, directing Greene to take responsibility for all contrabands in Washington, D.C., and Alexandria, to seize Arlington and “all rebel lands, farm houses and tenements thereon, at present abandoned by
their owners … situated south of the Potomac and within the lines of his command,” and to put able-bodied freedmen to
work cultivating “said lands … in such a manner as may be most beneficial to the Government.” 61
    Freedmen began moving to Arlington that spring. There they would live under the joint patronage of the quartermaster’s office
and the American Missionary Association. The first wave of a hundred former slaves, including some who had belonged to the
Lees, filed into the fields and began sowing wheat and planting potatoes. Some lived in surplus army tents while a village
of simple frame duplex houses took shape along the Potomac River. 62 This new Freedman’s Village, where the streets were named for famous generals and political figures, was formally dedicated
on December 4, 1863. A correspondent from Harper’s Weekly wrote approvingly about the settlement. It was“quite lively, having a large number of children in it … The principal
street is over a quarter of a mile long, and the place presents a clean and prosperous appearance at all times.” 63
    It would grow to a community of fifteen hundred, with a hospital, two churches, a home for the aged, and schools for both
children and adults. The latter were trained as seamstresses, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, and carpenters. The idea was that
the village would provide a temporary haven for freedmen until they found jobs and established their own homes elsewhere. 64 Some did move on, but many refugees stayed at Freedman’s Village for decades, raising children and even grandchildren on
the fringes of the old plantation.
    The new settlement at Arlington was applauded by those who believed that slavery was a sin and Lee a traitor. “One sees more
than poetic justice in the fact that its rich lands, so long the domain of the great general of the rebellion, now afford
labor and support to the hundreds of enfranchised slaves,” wrote a visiting journalist, who also found hope and enthusiasm