Trial run

History is filled with tales of enslaved African-Americans fleeing southern bondage. George Washington Frosst’s life was never as harsh, nor his journey as dangerous, but it was not without risk. He was, after all, a suspected Union spy to the Confederates, and a Southern merchant to Unionists. He made five trips across the Mason-Dixon Line altogether – three north and two south – during the peak of the Civil War that eventually left over 600,000 dead. George recounted his story 37 years later in 1900, shortly before his death, yet his story is rich with detail.

After the bloody battle at Fredricksburg in 1863, George decided he had to get his family out of Richmond to the safety of his boyhood town of South Berwick. His first scouting expedition took just over a month travelling in winter on horseback, by carriage, oxcart, ferry and in rented boats. Avoiding military maneuvers when possible, he crossed the Rappahannock, Pocomoke, Potomac, and Chesapeake largely under cover of darkness, praying not to be mistaken for a blockade runner, smuggler or spy. Reaching South Berwick on his second try, George Frosst saw his mother and sister for the first time in 15 years, then headed right back to Virginia to collect his family.

Escape to Maine

Confident that the journey could be made safely, George and his wife Emma prepared. Soon after the devastating battle at Gettysburg, they discreetly settled their accounts and packed. They set off with a few hundred dollars in "greenbacks" and gold, and $2000 in confederate "scrip" that was trading at about six-to-one in Union dollars. At 4:30 on the morning of July 23, 1863, the Frosst family bid their neighbors farewell and set out in a two-horse carriage driven by a black man named Price. Scarcely 20 miles from Richmond one of the horses fell by a stream and soon died, stranding the carriage at night. A passing Samaritan rescued, fed, and housed the family, but their troubles had just begun.

Refreshing their team of horses, they quickly met up with a roving detective who noticed that Emma Frosst’s papers did not allow her to travel outside the local community. George tried bribing the "plug ugly" detective with booze. "It did not require a prophet to tell that he was fond of whiskey," Frosst later wrote, "and a large lot of it, at that." When the drunken detective passed out, the Frosst family disappeared, crossing rivers, staying with families and bribing strangers along the way. Stealing 10 miles along the river to Washington City with other passengers, their overloaded wooden boat nearly sank. But they bravely pressed on, George recorded, because they would "rather sleep on the bottom of the Potomac that night, than be back in Richmond under the reign of Jeff Davis and his minions." The party held their breath as they passed silently under the stern of an enemy gunboat without rousing the guards. After hiring another carriage at great expense and bribing another detective, their goal was in sight.

On reaching Leonardtown, MD on the first week of August, George Washington Frosst was overwhelmed. Stepping aboard the steamer that would take them to Washington, he spotted an American flag. Only then, he wrote 37 years later at age 73, did the enormity of his journey overtake his emotions. After three years living under "mob law", he was headed home and his family was safe. After waiting out the war in South Berwick, the Frosst family returned to Richmond. But George never forgot that first glimpse of the Star-Spangled Banner. Although his feelings were "beyond description," George described them all the same. He wrote:

"I can at this day feel the joyous thrill it gave me when I saw Old Glory floating above me. I felt like yelling with delight, and giving the stars and stripes one good rousing cheer, and throwing up my hat, I was almost crazy. It was, of course, only a flag, but it was my Country's Flag, I have never since seen anything so beautiful as it appeared to me that day. I felt like falling on my knees and thanking my God for deliverance."

SOURCE: To read excerpts from the journal of George Washington Frosst visit the Old Berwick Historical Society web site at www.obhs.net.