Great Exodus From Bondage

The former Farmers’ Bank building at this intersection was once the home and workplace of John Washington (1838-1918), who early in the 1870s wrote a memoir of his life in slavery. On 18 April 1862, about eight months before the Emancipation Proclamation, Washington fled Fredericksburg and crossed the Rappahannock River to Falmouth, where Union forces had just arrived. He was among the first of more than 10,000 refugees enslaved in surrounding counties who escaped to Union lines and freedom over the next four months. These acts of self-emancipation accelerated a shift in federal policy that ultimately led to the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ending chattel slavery in the United States.