'Fifty Years in Chains' is an autobiography of a fugitive slave,Charles Ball, where he describes his life as a slave under various masters and his service in the Chesapeake Bay Flotilla of the U.S. Navy under the command of Commodore Joshua Barney in the War of 1812. Charles Ball (1780 - unknown) was an enslaved African-American from Maryland who worked as a cook and sailor.According to his Autobiography his grandfather was a man from a noble African family who was enslaved and brought to Calvert County, Maryland around 1730.