[BroJoeK]

"The Georgia Reprisals: The Second Seizure of Vessels at Savannah – 5"

In this article we see for the first time (so far as I know) the word "contraband".
In this case it refers to shipments of weapons in New York intended for Georgia's governor but seized by New York authorities and prevented from leaving New York.
In reprisals, Georgia's governor ordered several New York owned ships in Savanah harbor seized and held for ransom.
He soon released those ships when informed his purchase of weapons would proceed.
Then it turned out the weapons would instead be held as "contraband" until a court decides what to do, so Georgia seized other New York ships.

That word, "contraband" is usually associated with acts of war, though nobody has yet officially claimed that's what they're doing.

[jmacusa]

Hello Bro Joe. I had a book years ago, can't recall the publishers name but it was an illustrated and chronological history of the Civil War that had many dozens of Matthew Brady photos of blacks who were runaway slaves who had made it to Union territory.

They were referred to in the captions as ''contrabands''. Can you imagine referring to human beings like that?