V1rginia
In all, some 10,000 enslaved people from V1rginia fled to the British side between 1779 and 1781, constituting what some historians consider the greatest slave rebellion in US history. For most of the participants in this war time slave rebellion, the decision to runaway proved fatal. Majority died of smallpox were various fevers that slept through the British camps, while others lost their lives to starvation or battle wounds during the siege of Yorktown. As the siege tightened, general Cornwallis decided to conserve supplies by sending thousands of black men out of the fortified camp they had helped build, giving them a chance to avoid recapture but exposed them to new perils. Probably no more than one out of six fugitives from slavery survived the end of the war.