Union general Benjamin Butler was in charge of Fortress Monroe, which sits on an island in the Hampton Roads area of the Chesapeake Bay, when runaway slaves Frank Baker, Shepard Mallory, and James Townsend escaped to his fort. By declaring these men and other escaped slaves “contraband of war,” and thus to remain within Union lines, Butler effectively wiped the Fugitive Slave Act off the legal slate in the Confederacy and opened the door for thousands of African Americans to find their way to freedom before the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation. Told to turn away those unable to work, Butler stated: “If I take the able-bodied only, the young must die. If I take the mother, must I not take the child?”