In Hampton, Virginia, Mary Smith Peake teaches her first classes for "contrabands"

Mary Smith Peake had recently been hired by the American Missionary Society to teach recently free slaves who had gathered in large numbers around the Union lines around Fort Monroe in Hampton, Virginia.  She reportedly held her first classes for "contrabands" on this day, under a tree on the grounds that would become officially in 1868 the Hampton Institute.  (By John Osborne)