Many enslaved African Americans in the United States escaped bondage with the help of the Underground Railroad, but many others took it upon themselves to seize their freedom without assistance and, among the more dramatic escapes, was the flight of Wallace Turnage (circa 1846 to 1916), who fled from Mobile, Alabama, in 1864 when he was 17.
Turnage was born a slave in North Carolina circa 1846, the son of a teenage enslaved mother and a White master. He tried to escape four times and was repeatedly caught, whipped, and sold to someone else before finally becoming the property of one Collier Minge, a merchant of Mobile, Alabama.
In 1864, with the American Civil War ongoing and Mobile heavily fortified by Confederate forces, he was sent by his master to drive the carriage into town for supplies when the harness broke. Returning to his master's house without the carriage, Mrs. Minge flew into a rage and tossed him into the basement of the house to await punishment when her husband returned home. Rather than submit to another beating, Turnage ran away, was caught, beaten with 30 lashes in town, and told to return to the Minge house immediately.
Instead, he walked out of Mobile, made his way through the Confederate defenses of the city, eluded pickets, and traveled 25 miles (40 km) down to Mobile Bay, hoping to reach the Union Fort Powell offshore, which he did, winning his freedom.
A Slave No More
Turnage, who had learned to read and write at an early age, later penned a narrative of his escape (Journal of Wallace Turnage), which was given to his daughter, Lydia Turnage Connolly (1885-1984) of Greenwich, Connecticut, who kept it until she died. The manuscript was donated to the Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich by one Gladys Watts, a friend of Lydia's, and the society brought the work to the attention of Professor David William Blight, who edited and published it, along with the slave narrative of John M. Washington, as A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation (2007).
Since the publication of Blight's book, Turnage's story has received significant attention as one of the most dramatic narratives of a freedom seeker in 19th-century America. An excerpt from his work is given below, detailing his trek from Mobile to Fort Powell and freedom. From Fort Powell, he was taken to nearby Fort Gaines and served as a cook to an officer, Julius Turner, for the rest of the war. After the war, Turnage and his family moved to New Jersey, where he held various jobs, there and in New York, until his death, from natural causes, in 1916.
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The following is taken from A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom (2007) by David W. Blight, pp. 250-257. Some changes in spelling and punctuation have been made in the interests of clarity. The narrative begins after Turnage has made his way through Mobile's Confederate defenses and into the wetlands.
Now, as I had asked the Lord to remove me safe from their hands, I believed it would be done, even as I had asked. In my way I had many snakes to contend with and that of the bad kind, some of them would never move until they got a strike at me. I was bare-footed and therefore greatly exposed to their venom, but it was the Lord that carried me through and not myself.
I was troubled all the day long with these snakes but I saw nothing of them at night. I never seen so many snakes in my life before or since. It was in the swamps south of Mobile where I walked over water and wanted it, but I could not drink it on account of so many snakes. I went four days without anything to eat but a few grapes off a grape vine I found in the woods.
About this time, I could see the warships of the Union lying way off in the pass and in Mobile Bay. But there was betwixt me and them a dreadful-looking river, called Foul River, and a rebel picket line to cross, and that was no easy thing to do. Now, the looks of the river frightened me. So I waited a day or so to see if I could not get across some other way without swimming, but I could not, so I come across a cantaloupe patch and I was so near starved out that I destroyed everything that was fit for anything in that patch that day; and I saw a colored man that night and asked him for something to eat and he give me so much that it made me sick.
Now, as I come so near being caught that night and day or so after that, I resolved that I would try to get from that side of the river; it was death to go back, and it was death to stay there, and freedom was before me; it could only be death to go forward if I was caught and freedom if I escaped.
However, to make my story short, I went down to the river very early in the morning, though the river looked very frightful, but I put my trust in the Lord and I walked in the river as though there was no river there, with my hat, pants, jacket all on the grass laped in the river on either side and the water was deep; as I walked in, my feet went down. So, I had to swim without wading any. I heard big fish breaking about in the water.
Now, when I got very near the shore on the other side, I give out, and sink, but I found no bottom. When I rose again, I swum out and went on my way, feeling very delighted that I had got across the river that I dreaded so much.
But I had not gone far before I seen that I was in the Rebel Picket lines; the place that I had to pass through was an old open Piny woods and it had broom sage in it just about waist high and that was all that I had to hide in. Now, the pickets' lines was arranged in this way: two men would ride up one road and two men would ride down the other and so on. These roads was large enough for cavalry to ride two abreast; the roads was as near as I can judge about a hundred yards apart.
Now the way I had to cross these lines – when I seen two men ride up, I would run across the road, and when I seen two men ride down the road, I would lay down in the broom sage until they passed, then I would run across that road and do likewise, and so on until I got across the Pickets lines.
Then I thought I was safe, but I was not; just as soon as I came out in the opening where the bushes did not hide my head, I heard someone hollering after me and, when I looked across the opening, I seen a man on an elevated road on a horse with a gun in his hand waving it. I could see it shine. For fear it might be a rifle, and he might shoot me, I layed down and crawled away from that place for that whole plain was a salt meadow and there was water continually on the ground.
So, I could not lay down except I bent the bushes down and lay upon them, so I bent the bushes down in a thick place where they would keep me off the wet ground and lay there all day until dark. Then I went down to Cedar Point, opposite Dauphine Island, and when I got there, I was disappointed again. I saw that Fort Powell lay on the farther side of Grants Pass, next to Dauphine Island, near the channel.
That fort was built by the Confederates some time before to prevent the Union gun boats from coming into Mobile Bay through the Pass; but when they saw that they could not hold it, they put fire to the magazine and escaped by night to Cedar Point and the fort blow up, destroying everything. Then the Federals took the fort and mounted one large gun to prevent an attack by the rebels from Cedar Point and also a gun boat to protect the pass by night.
Now, there was another channel betwixt Fort Powell and Grants Pass, but it was blockaded. However, as I told you, when I got to Cedar Point, I was disappointed. I had to lay on Cedar Point from one Saturday to the next, before I could get away, and I had no fresh water to drink in that time, and nothing to eat but what I could pick up where the soldiers camped months past. I had a hiding place in the ditch of the old fortifications where the young reeds grow up very thick. The rebels came down on that point once or twice every day to see if any Yankee stragglers had landed there; I came near being caught several times.
Once, I became so impatient seeing the free country in view, and I still in the slave country, I took me a long pole and got on a log, for the tide brought old logs ashore every day. I got one that would hold my weight and not sink. I thought, by this way, I could pole my way over. But, to my surprise, I soon got where I could not get bottom with my long pole and the tide was taking me right up the bay, toward the rebels.
Now, my log was very long, and my mind led me to go to the upper end and I might find bottom, so I did. My log was very large, and I could run on it just the same as you could on any large flat log, so I run to the upper end of the log and I found bottom just enough to arrest the speed of the log, but I could not get the log to the shore again, for I was afraid that the rebels would come down before I got to shore, for it was not light when I left the shore, but the sun was quite high when I reached land again.
There was a long wharf there and, when I got my log manageable, I brought it up by the side of this wharf and got up on the wharf and run into my den. The rebels was late coming down that morning and I had not much more than got in my den before they came.
Now, they had a high spie [spy] house built to spie from and, the mosquitoes being quite bad there, I slept up there most nights. So, one morning, I slept quite late, when I awaked I hastened down for fear they would come upon me and I had not been in my den long before they come down; and, another morning, I awaked while it was yet dark and, for fear I would sleep late again, I came down. And, just about light, I was aroused in my den by the clinking of a rebel sabre climbing up into that spie house. Just see how that the Lord delivered me from their hand.
Now, on Friday, I became very much troubled in mind, though I had got that far, yet I was not safe, and it was death if I was caught there. The Lord had brought me that far, I believed, he would carry me farther. So, I prayed faithfully on Friday night that the Lord would remove me from that place. Now, the tide commenced to go out every night and continued to go until the next day when it would return, bringing to my estimation the same logs and trash with it, though they might not have been.
After I had prayed for deliverance from that place, I lay down to sleep, believing it would be just as I had asked. The next morning, I was awakened a great while before day by a voice singing within me; so, I got up and came down out of the spie house, and it seemed as though someone invisible led me and it took me down by the side of the water - and where I could walk then I could not walk that day at twelve o'clock for the tide would be in.
Now, when I got down there, I seen a little boat, very small indeed, though the tide was going out, it stood like it was held by an invisible hand. So, I got in the little boat, and it held me, meantime I got a piece of board for an oar and started out from Cedar Point to row my way over to Fort Powell.
I got along very well until I got to a little sand island between Cedar Point and Fort Powell. Now, when the tide was high, you could not scarcely see this little island, but when you got there, it was large enough to hide behind. Now I had to hurry to get to this little island, because my boat had dipped water crossing the first channel. Moreover, the rebel pickets could have reached me with their muskets if they had come down early.
It was very squally that morning, but I reached that little sand bar or island before I got into a squall. When I got there, I looked back from whence I came with delight, to think that I had come that far, and had not received a rebel ball.
I bailed out my little boat, and then set my course for Fort Powell. Now I only had about a quarter of a mile to go before I was at the fort; they had a large cannon pointed direct toward me. Every now and then I could see them rise up on Fort Powell and then disappear, to see who I was. They could see the rebels at a distance, spying me, and the Yankees could not understand it because I come from their country.
Now I had many thoughts in my mind about the appearance of things notwithstanding. I believed the Yankees to be my friends, so I stared out for Fort Powell with the expectation of soon being in the free states. But, when I had got about twenty-five yards from this sand bar, I heard a voice according to my understanding say to me, "you cannot get there yourself, they will have to come out and get you."
Now I began to doubt this, supposing this was my own imagination, and said "what will hinder me from getting up there?" In the meantime, I looked up the bay and I seen the water like a hill coming with a white cap upon it. Then I commenced to see the trouble and, while I was amusing in my mind what to do, the storm struck me. It carried my boat some distance unmanageable by me. I got into a trough and came near being swamped.
I understood a little about the water, but I could not have done anything if the Lord had not helped me. So, I managed to get my boat straight so as to ride the waves. In the midst of my struggle, I heard the crash of oars and, behold, there was eight Yankees in a boat. They run up by the side of me and said, "Jump into this boat, boy!" And, in the midst of the motion of their oars, I jumped into their boat and my boat turned bottom upward just as soon as I had vacated it. And they were struck with silence.
Then one of them said, "Take that boat and bring it up to show what a trifling thing he came over in." The sea was high, and they could not stop. They had to do all very quick. Then they turned their boat to go back to the fort again. All of this time, the rebels was spying me and them from their side for it was not no more than about two miles. The federal soldiers asked me where did I come from. I told them. The captain said he did not intend to come out to get me at first but, when he seen me in the storm, he got his men and came immediately to my relief.
And, after pulling about a half an hour, we arrived at the fort. After we arrived at the fort, the captain asked me no more questions at all. His men took me to their tents and gave me attention in all that I wanted, and I stayed on Fort Powell all night.
The next morning, I was up early and took a look at the rebels' country with a thankful heart to think that I had made my escape with safety after such a long struggle and had obtained that freedom which I desired so long. I now dreaded the gun, and handcuffs, and pistols no more. Nor the blowing of horns and the running of hounds, nor the threats of death from the rebel's authority. I could now speak my opinion to men of all grades and colors, and no one to question my right to speak.
