"In 1860, enslaved African Americans numbered nearly 62,000, or forty-four percent of the 140,424 residents of the State of Florida. During the Civil War thousands of enslaved Floridians escaped from their owners and found refuge in the Union-occupied towns of Fernandina, Jacksonville, St. Augustine, and Key West, where they were considered 'contraband of war' and were not returned to their former owners. They found work on the abandoned plantations in the area controlled by Union forces, built fortifications, worked as teamsters for the Federal troops. As soon as Union policy permitted, more than 1000 self-liberated men from northeast Florida farms and plantations who settled into the swelling refugee camps outside the coastal towns, began joining three Union regiments . . . the 33rd, 34th, and 21st regiments of United States Colored Infantry."

Quote from Introduction to Black Floridians and the Civil War in Florida History Online.