In August 1861, the St. Mary’s Beacon reported that a man named George Scriber, approximately 25 to 30 years old, had been brought to the Old Jail in Leonardtown. George had escaped from John A. Burroughs of Charles County.

Early reports credited his arrest to Captain Gray of the Federal schooner Bailey near Piney Point, but a correction in a later edition of the paper clarified that it was R. J. Marshall who had actually arrested George — Marshall then turned him over to Captain Gray, who transported him to the jail.

The involvement of a Federal vessel is a notable detail. By 1861, the Civil War was underway, and yet here was a Union ship’s captain participating in the capture and return of an enslaved man — a reminder that the Federal government’s commitment to ending slavery was still far from settled at that stage of the war.