Balto [Md.] Novr 14" /64
Statement of Jane Kamper
Slave of Wm Townsend of Talbot County Md.
I was the slave of Wm Townsend of Talbot county & told Mr. Townsend of my having become free & desired my master to give my children & my bedclothes he told me that I was free but that my Children Should be bound to me [him]. he locked my Children up so that I could not find them I afterwards got my children by stealth & brought them to Baltimore. I desire to regain possession of my bed clothes & furniture.
My Master pursued me to the Boat to get possession of my children but I hid them on the boat
her
Jane X Kamper (f[ree] n[egro])
mark
Statement of Jane Kamper, 14 Nov. 1864, filed with M-1932 1864, Letters Received, series 12, Adjutant General's Office, Record Group 94, National Archives. Given at the headquarters of the Middle Department and 8th Army Corps.
Published in The Wartime Genesis of Free Labor: The Upper South, p 519, in Free at Last, p. 373, and in Families and Freedom, p. 214.