(tense music) (man panting) (drums rattling) (soldiers shouting) - [Soldier] Where are you going, boy?

(gentle folk music) (wagons rattling) (somber music) - [Narrator] It is January 1863.

Abraham Lincoln's executive order, the Emancipation Proclamation, has changed the legal status of millions of African Americans from enslaved to free.

But for those held behind Confederate lines, the buying and selling of men, women, and children like 16 year old Wallace Turnage continues.

(somber music) - [Seller] Mr. Minge, thank you for making the trip.

This is Wallace.

- You know how to drive a wagon?

- Yes, sir.

- Well, get on in there.

- [Wallace] There was an old gentleman who heard I was for private sale.

- Thank you very much.

- Good day.

- [Wallace] What's the horse's name, Mr. Minge?

- George.

- [Wallace] He wanted a boy to wait on his family.

To drive, to do general housework.

He made an application for me, and bought me.

(wagon rattling) The old gentleman's name was Mr. Minge.

- He's in the heart of Mobile, which is garrisoned all around by a Confederate army.

War is enveloping that entire region, and this kid, with his ears and eyes open, knew there was a great crisis in the air.

(boots thudding) - So for enslaved people, including Turnage, they all knew about the war.

Some enslaved people are in the spaces as they're hearing conversations.

Some are literate, and they will be reading newspapers.

The access of knowledge takes on different forms, but everyone knows.

(tense music) (rain pattering) - Mr. Minge.

I don't think this harness is gonna make another trip.

Is there another one around you have?

(thunder booms) - There's plenty of life left in this harness, Wallace.

After what I spent on you, we won't be buying anything like that anytime soon.

You better mend it well, or it'll come out of your hide.

(rain pattering) (somber music) - [Wallace] Mr. Minge gave 20 hundred dollars for me.

I waited on his table, drove his carriage, plowed in his field.

- [Narrator] But there was one thing that Minge did not know about Wallace Turnage.

- [Wallace] He did not know that I was sold for running away.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] Wallace Turnage was born in Green County, North Carolina on August 24, 1846.

When he was just a child, he was separated from his mother and sold to a slave trader in Richmond, Virginia.

- [Wallace] I was carried out to Richmond, and kept as an auction and office boy.

- [Man] His job was to prepare the slaves to go out onto the auction floor.

- [Seller] Need her fixed up.

- And one day he's told, you're in the auction.

And boom, he's sold.

- I'll pay for my free papers.

I just wanna get home to North Carolina, sir.

- I don't wanna hear it.

Put on this coat and this hat in 10 minutes.

- Yes, sir.

I was ushered then southward to Pickensville, Alabama.

- Imagine the shock.

Just the beginnings of shock, after shock, after shock in his life.

- [Narrator] During his time on the Pickensville plantation, Turnage makes four unsuccessful attempts to reach the United States Army in Northern Mississippi.

- [Wallace] I was a very fast runner.

The dogs, nor the people could catch me.

(dogs barking) (Wallace panting) - [Narrator] After each escape attempt, he is severely beaten, but his will to return to his mother never fades.

- Finally, his owner had had enough.

Takes him down to Mobile, sells him to a merchant in Mobile named Minge.

- [Narrator] Mobile is bracing for war, and guarded like a fortress.

- Mobile is almost under siege at the time he arrives.

The army's all around the city.

The troops are in the streets every day.

- [Wallace] I was trying to go back where I came from, but Mobile was well fortified, and I could be no means get out.

(gentle music) - The enslaved experience for men, women, boys, girls is gonna be very different.

Once they've hit the teenage range, they're starting to reach what many within the institution will call their prime age.

They're trying to figure out how to navigate this institution that has continued to oppress them.

(dogs barking) (Wallace panting) Each act fighting for his freedom was a demonstration that he clearly was opposed to what was being put on him.

(somber music) - [Woman] Wallace, Wallace, Wallace.

(bugle fanfare blaring) - [Wallace] This was the August of 1864.

Mobile was in quite a stir.

(explosions booming) - You hear that?

That's Farragut and his damn Yankee fleet.

He will cut off the bay.

Wallace!

We need to leave promptly if you're to pick up my supplies.

- [Wife] Be safe.

- I'll be back after my dinner with the colonel.

Wallace will return before dark with the supplies.

I'll rent a horse.

- [Wallace] Step up.

(explosions booming) (somber music) (hooves clopping) (tense music) - Now Mobile at that point had become a huge strategic site in the Civil War.

The Confederates had approximately 10,000 troops occupying the defenses of Mobile.

Mobile and Mobile Bay is a tremendously strategic site on the Southern Gulf Coast.

- [Narrator] While the North begins to turn its attention toward Mobile, beyond Mobile, the two sides are engaging in a series of critical, bloody battles.

General Ulysses S. Grant's United States Army has initiated the 10 month siege of Petersburg, Virginia.

While General William Sherman's army is on the cusp of capturing Atlanta, a critical supply center for the Rebel Army.

- Key to the survival of the Southern Confederacy was its ability to bring in supplies from abroad.

Arms, equipment, uniforms, medicine, engineering supplies, and anything else needed to sustain armies in the Civil War era.

The United States Navy was interested in blockading the South and preventing supplies from getting in.

- [Narrator] Without Mobile, the South would have little chance to win the war.

Wallace Turnage, however, has more immediate worries.

- Mr. Minge, sir, I don't know if this harness is gonna hold much longer.

- Wallace, I told you to keep your eye on that harness.

That is your responsibility.

Money to spend on a new harness, I spent enough on you.

You hear me?

- I hear you, Mr. Minge.

- [Narrator] The scene in Mobile is a mix of fear, and opportunity.

- Colonel.

- [Narrator] Depending on which side you were on.

- I'll be home after dinner with the colonel here.

Once you to pick up those supplies, Wallace, you be quick o get back to Mrs. Minge.

- Yes, sir.

- Colonel.

- Step up.

- [Minge] She's doing well, she's doing well.

- [Wallace] As I was crossing the car track in Dauphin Street, I hit the horse to get out of the way of the car.

(horse whinnies) Whoa, whoa!

(wagon clattering) Out he went, like a locomotive.

I had to let the rein go.

(Wallace groaning) - Boy, you're blessed.

Here's your horse and your harness.

Someone must be looking out for you.

(people murmuring) (somber music) (thunder rumbling) (ominous music) - Where's the carriage?

- [Wallace] The carriage is in town, ma'am.

The harness broke.

- Boy, he warned you about that harness!

You're gonna learn to heed him.

- Ma'am, there isn't a man in the state of Alabama that could've fixed this desecrated piece of hide you call a harness.

I got angry.

- How dare you speak to me that way?

- [Wallace] Spoke very short to her.

- You get in that cellar!

When Mr. Minge gets home, he's gonna teach you some manners.

That is a certainty.

(door slams) - [Wallace] Now, this was counted the height of impertinence of a slave in the South.

(birds chirping) - [Woman] Wallace, Wallace.

(gentle music) (tense music) - [Wallace] Then, I came out of the cellar and bid them all goodbye, and went down into the city of Mobile.

- [Narrator] Having just been in Mobile, Turnage knows that the city is surrounded.

But since Minge's property is already within the fortified ring, he has no trouble getting in.

The problem is how to get out.

- I told him you were gonna teach him a lesson when you got home.

(people chattering) - Where is he?

Wallace!

Wallace!

- [Narrator] In Turnage's account, he writes of spending the next week among friends in town, careful not to stay too long at any one location.

It's possible that these are people he knew from his trips into Mobile.

Or from a church he had joined.

- [Man] Are you sure he's in here?

- [Man] Them boys said they seen him come in last night.

- All right, there he is, there you, oh, where'd you come from?

Who do you belong to, boy?

- Come on.

- Fellas, Mr. Minge is not gonna be happy.

I've been told to wait out the storm here to get his supplies.

- Oh, don't be lying to us, boy.

- Mr. Minge is offering good money for you, boy.

Come on.

- Let's go.

Get him outta here.

(rain pattering) (thunder rumbling) - [Man] Thank you, Lieutenant.

Well done.

- Thank you, sir.

- [Man] Got one for me?

Strip to the waist.

Come on, let's go.

Let's hurry it up, come on.

(somber music) Haven't got all day.

Hands up, come on.

(Wallace shuddering) - [Wallace] So they tied the rope around my legs and arms, and they had a strap there, about two or three leathers thick.

And they hit me 30 lashes with that strap.

Every lick took the skin off.

That was the worst whipping I had ever had.

(Wallace shuddering) (thunder rumbling) (strap thwacks) (ominous music) (rain pattering) (thunder rumbles) - You will understand me, Wallace.

Your home is now right here in Mobile with the missus and I.

(rain pattering) - God only knows what his back and his body must have looked like.

He's in pain, he's desperate.

But he simply walks out of town.

- The slaveholders have this strange logic that enslaved people are content in slavery.

That they want to remain in slavery.

That they see the benefit of slavery to themselves, and they appreciate the work that their masters are doing for them.

- [Narrator] Minge, like the owners before him, clearly underestimates Wallace Turnage.

The only home he intends to return to is back in North Carolina.

(intense music) (rain pattering) (thunder rumbling) (explosions booming) (bugle fanfare blaring) (drums rattling) (suspenseful music) (explosions booming) Turnage understands that the US Navy is nearby in Mobile Bay, but reaching them will be a near impossible task.

After getting outside Mobile, he'll need to walk more than 20 miles through a remote wilderness, and then hope to make contact with United States troops near Dauphin Island.

Since the Emancipation Proclamation, enslaved people knew that they could often find a safe haven within a US military camp.

They might even find an opportunity to join the fight.

But for Turnage to have a chance at reaching a US military base, he'll first need to slip through Mobile's fortified ring.

(suspenseful music) (rain pattering) (soldiers chattering) - [Wallace] I put my trust in the Lord, and went on, and let the result be what it would.

And I went right through their camp, and they, one to another, looked at me, but said nothing.

And when I got to the gap that led through the bracework, there was no guard there.

- As he is navigating his freedom through a Confederate camp, demonstrates how dismissive these Confederate soldiers were.

Turnage is using the system of oppression against his oppressors to gain his freedom.

(Wallace panting) (tense music) (explosions booming) - [Soldier] Where you goin', boy?

(Wallace chuckles) (drums rattling) (explosions booming) - [Narrator] At this point in Turnage's account, he writes that he is barefoot.

It is not clear when, or how he lost his shoes.

However, with the war and the blockade creating scarcity for basic supplies, a good pair of shoes would be in high demand.

(birds chirping) (eerie music) Passing through the Confederate camp is just the start of Wallace Turnage's ordeal.

He still has some 20 miles between him and his goal.

(eerie music) - Now he's literally walking into an area of rivers, swamps, a terrain that nobody should ever try to walk through.

He has nothing with him.

(snake hisses) - Get back!

I have never seen so many snakes in my life before, or since.

I walked over water, and wanted it, but I could not drink it on account of so many snakes.

I went four days without anything to eat, but a few grapes off of a grapevine I found in the woods.

- [Narrator] For days, Turnage slogs through Alabama's coastal forest.

(frogs croaking) There's no one around him, but he's not completely alone.

(tense music) (insects chirping) (man humming) - Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Wait a minute, wait a minute.

Hold on boy, I'm not gonna hurt ya, I'm not gonna hurt ya.

Hold it right there, hold it right there.

Are you hungry?

You just wait right there, okay?

Wait right there now, don't move.

- [Narrator] The encounter is a reminder that there are others sharing this wilderness with him.

- The risk for Black people, free or enslaved, was everything.

Ultimately, their lives.

And it's really important to realize that there was a larger commitment to support and protect the freedom of all Black people.

(man humming) - I think I'mma keep this one here for myself.

But boy, you're tearin' everything up.

Slow down, slow down.

You gonna make yourself sick now.

See, you can't just go right straight through it like that.

Take it easy, now.

(man chuckles) (Wallace retches) Oh, I told ya, I told ya.

(insects chirping) (man humming) (eerie music) - How this kid physically survived this for a period of almost three weeks is just hard to believe.

He's been through so much horror.

Whippings, beatings, savagery.

He's a survivor.

(tense music) - [Narrator] Fortunately for Turnage, while he has been fleeing slavery, in Mobile Bay, the United States Army and Navy have been decimating the Confederate defenses.

While running a lethal gauntlet of floating mines, they first dismantle their navy, and capture the ironclad CSS Tennessee.

Then, they capture the three forts guarding the bay.

First, Fort Powell, Fort Gaines, and later Fort Morgan.

The United States military is slowly coming into Turnage's view.

If he's to reach them, Turnage must continue his journey south while avoiding the attention of Confederate pickets.

(suspenseful music) The pickets travel two wide, along a pair of roads stretching through the wetlands.

(ominous music) - [Wallace] I had not gone far before I saw that I was in the Rebel picket lines.

When I saw two men come down the road, I would lay down in the broom sage until they'd passed.

(ominous music) - [Narrator] Turnage's path slowly winds southward until eventually, he's within sight of a US military encampment.

- He finally gets out to the tip of the mainlands, a place called Cedar Point.

And then he spends another series of days playing cat and mouse games with some Confederate lookouts.

- [Narrator] Turnage discovers an elevated platform, which he calls the spy house.

It is an excellent vantage point for observing the bay, and Fort Powell.

(tense music) - [Soldier] Come on.

(frogs croaking) (leaves rustling) (birds squawking) (canteen rattles) (Wallace sputters) (somber music) (canteen rattles) (Wallace panting) - [Wallace] I was not safe.

The Lord had brought me that far.

I believed he would carry me farther.

I prayed faithfully on Friday night that he would remove me from that place.

(Wallace shivering) (somber music) (woman humming) - [Woman] And this little piggy had none, and this little piggy cried wee, wee, wee all the way home.

(woman laughs) (woman humming) (insects chirping) (tense music) - [Woman] Wallace.

(suspenseful music) Wallace, Wallace, Wallace, Wallace.

- [Wallace] The next morning, I was awakened by a voice singing within me.

(intense music) - You leave the cork out of my whiskey?

- It wasn't me.

Looks like the same footprints from the shore.

- [Soldier] Well go find him, go.

- [Wallace] I got up, and came down out of the spy house.

(insects chirping) (suspenseful music) - [Soldier] Where is he?

- [Wallace] It seemed as though someone invisible led me, and it took me down by the side of the water.

- [Woman] Wallace.

- [Narrator] Incredibly, the previous night's tide had delivered a small, flimsy rowboat.

- [Soldier] Do you see him?

(waves lapping) (Wallace grunting) - [Wallace] I got in the little boat, and it held me.

- He found some kind of plank of wood, and he just out of, again, crazy, desperate bravery started rowing out on Mobile Bay.

(waves crashing) (tense music) - [Soldier] Hey, hey, there he is!

Shoot him, shoot him!

(guns firing) - [Narrator] The tide is low, slowing Turnage's progress and keeping him within range of Rebel guns.

His destination, Fort Powell, is still nearly two miles away.

- He is fighting in every way to reach a new life.

Psychologically and mentally, can I make it?

It was never simple.

- [Narrator] As he pushes further into the open water, Turnage learns that his small, ragged rowboat is barely seaworthy.

- [Wallace] I looked up the bay, and saw the water like a hill coming at me.

(wave crashes) (Wallace gasps) - [Narrator] Once he is within sight of Fort Powell, he begins to hear shouting.

- Hey!

- Do you see me?

I'm over here!

Hey, please!

In the midst of my struggle, I heard the crash of oars, and saw Yankees in a boat.

- [Yankee] Come to us!

- Please, help, help!

I'm sinking!

My boat!

- [Yankee] Hey!

Grab my hand!

(wave crashes) (emotional music) - [Wallace] My boat turned bottom upward just as soon as I had vacated it.

And they were struck with silence.

- Those Union navy men just looked at him in silence.

As if to say, oh my god.

How did you get here?

Who are you?

And how could you do this?

(soothing music) They rowed him to Fort Powell, which was on a little island he could see from his Cedar Point hideaway.

He describes that as his first breaths of freedom.

And he stayed there overnight, cared for, fed.

- [Wallace] I took a look at the Rebels' country with a thankful heart.

I had made my escape with safety, and I'd obtained that freedom which I desired so long.

- [Narrator] Turnage was free, but his journey wasn't over.

- [David] He is interrogated by General Granger who was the overall commander of all Union forces in the Mobile region.

- [Granger] So Turnage, I heard about your journey.

- [David] And here was a kid, he was told, no doubt, had escaped from Mobile, had lived in Mobile.

They wanted intelligence.

- The best intelligence information that the United States Army acquired came from enslaved people that were fleeing their captivity in the Confederate states.

The condition of Confederate morale, what was happening behind Confederate lines.

(cannons booming) - [Narrator] Farragut's victory at Mobile Bay cut off one of the last of the Confederates' deep water courts.

Eight months later, Wallace Turnage, now working for the US military, would see the city of Mobile fall as well.

(emotional music) Next, he would go through New Orleans to Natchez and Vicksburg.

Then to Baltimore, where he makes arrangements to finally reunite with his mother in North Carolina.

As he would later write.

- [Wallace] This wound up my fifth and last runaway.

(emotional music) - When you look at Turnage's journal, one of the first things that comes to mind is how close it came to being lost.

It was almost a happy accident that it came into the possession of his daughter's friend, and then she had the foresight and recognized the value of the journal, and gave it to the historical society.

- I first met Wallace Turnage in effect in his narrative, leather bound, blue lined paper in a clamshell box.

It was simply extraordinary.

I could hardly believe it.

- Turnage's story, and the fact that he himself wrote it down is extremely important because it's not being limited through someone else's lens.

It's not being skewed in any way through a racialized interpretation.

It is him telling it how he felt it.

What this escape meant to him.

(emotional music) (pleasant folk music)