You are standing in front of a graphic panel titled “Civil War: The Union.” To your left is a wide doorway leading to section five of the exhibition: From Emancipation to Jim Crow. Further left is a graphic panel titled “Civil War: The Confederacy.” To your right is a graphic panel titled “Separated by Slavery” with an accompanying reader rail, flip book, and audio component.

The panel in front of you includes text and four images.

A quote at the top of the panel reads:
“We are ready for the fray. One thing is sure—none of us could die in a better cause.”
—John Sellman, Jr. in a letter to his sister India Anne Sellman from Saint Helena Island, South Carolina, March 3, 1863

The main text reads:

CIVIL WAR:
The Union

The Civil War (1861 to 1865) divided the country in two and tore families apart—including the Sellmans.

As a border state, Maryland allowed slavery but did not secede from the Union. Sellman family members, their friends, and neighbors fought on both sides of the conflict. Thousands of Marylanders were killed and wounded in the war.

One section of secondary text reads:

Serving the Union
During the Civil War, John Henry Sellman II, a cousin from nearby Davidsonville, Maryland, enlisted in the Union Army. He served as assistant paymaster on the USS Montauk, an ironclad battleship stationed in Port Royal, South Carolina.
An accompanying grainy black-and-white photo shows a portrait of John Henry Sellman II and an image of a handwritten letter. The caption reads: In the final weeks of the Civil War, Sophia Sellman wrote this letter to her husband John Henry Sellman II, who was serving in the Union Army. “The latest news last evening was that we had captured Lee and his whole army,” she writes.

Another section of secondary text reads:

Fighting for Freedom
During the Civil War, thousands of African American men enlisted in the Union Army and risked their lives to fight for an end to slavery. Peter Murdoch, Thomas Johnson, and Thomas Young—formerly enslaved by the Sellman family—served in the 30th United States Colored Infantry Regiment. Slavery was finally abolished in Maryland in November 1864, just five months before the end of the war.
An accompanying black-and-white photo shows a line of African American men wearing Union Army uniforms. The caption reads: Company E of the 4th United States Colored Infantry Regiment at Fort Lincoln in Washington, DC.

A background image at the bottom of the panel shows a black-and-white photo of President Abraham Lincoln meeting with Union Army officers at Antietam, Maryland, October 3, 1862, just weeks after the battle of Antietam, known as the bloodiest day in American military history.