![]() The stories of two such sailors on Boston-built ships, William B. ![]() The presence of these sailors has its roots in the long history of African American participation in the Atlantic maritime world, while it also bears witness to the struggle of enslaved men to escape their bondage during the chaos that war brought to the slave states. In 1863, roughly 20% of naval enlistees were African American, many of whom shipped aboard the vessels launched at the Charlestown Navy Yard. On the expanding naval enlistment rolls of men called to duty to crew those ships, we find the names of many African Americans. The federal Navy was charged with the vital strategic goal of blockading the Confederate coastline. Throughout the four years of the American Civil War, Boston’s Navy Yard at Charlestown built over a dozen ships, converted more than forty, and outfitted an additional twenty-three commercially-built warships in its effort to bring the navy’s fleet to wartime strength.
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