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Abraham Lincoln - Civil War

Early Life
Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, 1809, near Hodgenville, Ky., the son of Nancy Hanks (1784?-181 cool and Thomas Lincoln (1778-1851), pioneer farmers.

Abraham LincolnAt the age of two he was taken by his parents to nearby Knob Creek and at eight to Spencer Co., Ind. The following year his mother died. In 1819 his father married Sarah Bush Johnston (1788-1869), a kindly widow, who soon gained the boy's affection.

Lincoln grew up a tall, gangling youth, who could hold his own in physical contests and also showed great intellectual promise, although he had little formal education. After moving with his family to Macon Co., Ill., in 1831, he struck out on his own, taking a cargo to New Orleans, La., on a flatboat. He then returned to Illinois and settled in New Salem, a short-lived community on the Sangamon River, where he split rails and clerked in a store. He gained the respect of his fellow townspeople, including the so-called Clary Grove boys, who had challenged him to physical combat, and was elected captain of his company in the Black Hawk War (1832). Returning from the war, he began an unsuccessful venture in shopkeeping that ended when his partner died.

In 1833 he was appointed postmaster but had to supplement his income with surveying and various other jobs. At the same time he began to study law. That he gradually paid off his and his deceased partner's debts firmly established his reputation for honesty. The story of his romance with Ann Rutledge (1816-35), a local young woman whom he knew briefly before her untimely death, is unsubstantiated.

Illinois Politician and Lawyer
Defeated in 1832 in a race for the state legislature, Lincoln was elected on the Whig ticket two years later and served in the lower house from 1834 to 1841. He quickly emerged as one of the leaders of the party and was one of the authors of the removal of the capital to Springfield, where he settled in 1837. After his admission to the bar (1836), he entered into successive partnerships with John T. Stuart (1807-85), Stephen T. Logan (1800-80), and William Herndon (1818-91), and soon won recognition as an effective and resourceful attorney.

In 1842 Lincoln married Mary Todd (1818-82), the daughter of a prominent Kentucky banker, and despite her somewhat difficult disposition, the marriage seems to have been reasonably successful. The Lincolns had four children, only one of whom reached adulthood.

His birth in a slave state notwithstanding, Lincoln had long opposed slavery. In the legislature he voted against resolutions favorable to the "peculiar institution" and in 1837 was one of two members who signed a protest against it. Elected to Congress in 1846, he attracted attention because of his outspoken criticism of the war with Mexico and formulated a plan for gradual emancipation in the District of Columbia. He was not an abolitionist, however. Conceding the right of the states to manage their own affairs, he merely sought to prevent the spread of human bondage.

National Recognition
Disappointed in a quest for federal office at the end of his one term in Congress (1847-49), Lincoln returned to Springfield to pursue his profession. In 1854, however, because of his alarm at Senator Stephen A. Douglas's KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT (q.v.), he became politically active again. Clearly setting forth his opposition to the repeal of the MISSOURI COMPROMISE, (q.v.), he argued that the measure was wrong because slavery was wrong and that Congress should keep the territories free for actual settlers (as opposed to those who traveled there mainly to vote for or against slavery). The following year he ran for the U.S. Senate, but seeing that he could not win, he yielded to Lyman Trumbull, a Democrat who opposed Douglas's bill. He campaigned for the newly founded Republican party in 1856, and in 1858 he became its senatorial candidate against Douglas. In a speech to the party's state convention that year he warned that "a house divided against itself cannot stand" and predicted the eventual triumph of freedom. Meeting Douglas in a series of debates, he challenged his opponent in effect to explain how he could reconcile his principles of popular sovereignty with the Dred Scott decision. In his reply, Douglas reaffirmed his belief in the practical ability of settlers to keep slavery out of the territories despite the Supreme Court's denial of their right to do so. Although Lincoln lost the election to Douglas, the debates won him national recognition.

Election and Secession Crisis
In 1860 the Republicans, anxious to attract as many different factions as possible, nominated Lincoln for the presidency on a platform of slavery restriction, internal improvements, homesteads, and tariff reform. In a campaign against Douglas and John C. Breckinridge, two rival Democrats, and John Bell, of the Constitutional Union party, Lincoln won a majority of the electoral votes and was elected president.

Immediately after the election, South Carolina, followed by six other Southern states, took steps to secede from the Union. Declaring that secession was illegal but that he had no power to oppose it, President James Buchanan preferred to rely on Congress to find a compromise. The success of this effort, however, depended on Lincoln, the president-elect, who was open to concessions but refused to countenance any possible extension of slavery. Thus, the CRITTENDEN COMPROMISE, (q.v.), the most promising scheme of adjustment, failed, and a new Southern government was inaugurated in February 1861.

Lincoln as President
When Lincoln took the oath of office on March 4, 1861, he was confronted with a hostile Confederacy determined to expand and threatening the remaining federal forts in the South, the most important of which was Fort Sumter in the harbor of Charleston, S.C. Anxious not to offend the upper South, which had not yet seceded, Lincoln at first refused to take decisive action. After the failure of an expedition to Fort Pickens, Fla., however, he decided to relieve Fort Sumter and informed the governor of South Carolina of his intention to send food to the beleaguered garrison. The Confederates, unwilling to permit continued federal occupation of their soil, opened fire to reduce the fort, thus starting the Civil War. When Lincoln countered with a call for 75,000 volunteers, the North responded with enthusiasm, but the upper South seceded.

Military leadership
As commander in chief, Lincoln encountered great difficulties in the search for capable generals. After the defeat of Irvin McDowell (1818-85) at the First Battle of Bull Run, the president appointed George B. McClellan to lead the eastern army but found him excessively cautious. His Peninsular campaign against Richmond, Va., the Confederate capital, failed, and Lincoln, whose own strategy had not succeeded in trapping Stonewall Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, virtually superseded McClellan with John Pope (1822-92). When Pope was defeated at the Second Battle of Bull Run, the president turned once more to McClellan, only to be disappointed again. Despite his victory at Antietam, Md., the general was so hesitant that Lincoln finally had to remove him. The president's next choice, Ambrose Burnside, was also unfortunate. Decisively beaten at Fredericksburg, Va., Burnside gave way to Joseph Hooker, who in turn was routed at Chancellorsville, Va. Then Lincoln appointed George G. Meade, who triumphed at Gettysburg, Pa., but failed to follow up his victory. Persisting in his determination to discover a general who could defeat the Confederates, the president in 1864 entrusted overall command to Ulysses S. Grant, the victor at Fort Donelson, Tenn., Vicksburg, Miss., and Chattanooga, Tenn. This choice was a good one. Grant, in a series of coordinated campaigns, finally brought the war to a successful conclusion.

Emancipation
In dealing with the problem of emancipation, Lincoln proved himself a masterful statesman. Carefully maneuvering to take advantage of radical pressure to move forward and conservative entreaties to hold back, he was able to retain the loyalty of the Democrats and the border states while still bringing about the final abolition of slavery. Lincoln pleased the radicals in 1861, when he signed the first Confiscation Act, freeing slaves used by the Confederates for military purposes. He deferred to the conservatives when he countermanded emancipation orders of the Union generals John C. Frémont and David Hunter (1802-86), but again courted the radicals by reverting to a cautious antislavery program. Thus, he exerted pressure on the border states to inaugurate compensated emancipation, signed the bill for abolition in the District of Columbia, and consented to the second Confiscation Act.

On July 22, 1862, in response to radical demands and diplomatic necessity, he told his cabinet that he intended to issue an emancipation proclamation but took care to soften the blow to the border states by specifically exempting them. Advised to await some federal victory, he did not make his proclamation public until September 22, following the Battle of Antietam, when he announced that all slaves in areas still in rebellion within 100 days would be "then, thenceforward, and forever, free." The final Emancipation Proclamation followed on Jan. 1, 1863. Promulgated by the president in his capacity as commander in chief in times of actual armed rebellion, it freed slaves in regions held by the insurgents and authorized the creation of black military units. Lincoln was determined to place emancipation on a more permanent basis, however, and in 1864 he advocated the adoption of an antislavery amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment was passed after Lincoln's reelection, when he made use of all the powers of his office to ensure its success in the House of Representatives (Jan. 31, 1865).

Political skill
A consummate politician, Lincoln sought to maintain harmony among the disparate elements of his party by giving them representation in his cabinet. Recognizing former Whigs by the appointment of William H. Seward as secretary of state and Edward Bates (1793-1869) as attorney general, he also extended invitations to such former Democrats as Montgomery Blair, who became postmaster general, and Gideon Welles (1802-7 cool , who became secretary of the navy. He honored local factions by appointing Simon Cameron of Pennsylvania secretary of war and Caleb B. Smith (1808-64) of Indiana secretary of the interior, while satisfying the border states with Bates and Blair. At the same time, he offset the conservative Bates with the radical Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase and later with Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. Although Lincoln was much closer to the radicals and gradually moved toward ever more radical measures, he did not needlessly offend the conservatives and often collaborated with them. His careful handling of the slavery issue is a case in point, as is his appointment of Democratic generals and his deference to the sensibilities of the border states. In December 1862 he foiled critics demanding the dismissal of the conservative Seward. Refusing to accept Seward's resignation and inducing the radical Chase to offer to step down as well, he maintained the balance of his cabinet by retaining both secretaries.

Lincoln's political influence was enhanced by his great gifts as an orator. Able to stress essentials in simple terms, he effectively appealed to the nation in such classical short speeches as the Gettysburg Address and his second inaugural address. Moreover, he was a capable diplomat. Firmly rejecting Seward's proposal in April 1861 that the country be united by means of a foreign war, he sought to maintain friendly relations with the nations of Europe, used the Emancipation Proclamation to win friends for the Union, and effectively countered Confederate efforts to gain foreign recognition.

Reelection and Reconstruction
In 1864 a number of disgruntled Republicans sought to prevent Lincoln's renomination. Adroitly outmaneuvering his opponents, especially the ambitious Chase, he succeeded in obtaining his party's endorsement at Baltimore, Md., even though a few extremists nominated Frémont. Lincoln's renomination did not end his political problems, however. Unhappy with his Proclamation of Amnesty (December 1863), which called for the restoration of insurgent states if 10 percent of the electorate took an oath of loyalty, Congress in July 1864 passed the Wade-Davis Bill, which provided for more onerous conditions and their acceptance by 50 percent of the voters. When Lincoln used the pocket veto to kill it, some radicals sought to displace him and in the so-called Wade-Davis Manifesto passionately attacked the administration.

The president, nevertheless, prevailed again. His poor prospects in August 1864 improved when the Democrats nominated Gen. McClellan on a peace platform. Subsequent federal victories and the withdrawal of Frémont, coupled with the resignation of the conservative Blair, reunited the party, and in November 1864 Lincoln was triumphantly reelected.

The president's success at the polls enabled him to seek to establish his own Reconstruction policies. To blunt conservative criticism, he met with leading Confederates at Hampton Roads, Va., and demonstrated the impossibility of a negotiated peace. The radicals, however, were also dissatisfied. Because of their demand for black suffrage, Lincoln was unable to induce Congress to accept the members-elect of the free state government of Louisiana, which he had organized. In addition, after the fall of Richmond, he alarmed his critics by inviting the Confederate legislature of Virginia to repeal the secession ordinance. His Reconstruction policies, however, had been determined by military necessity. As soon as the Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Va., Lincoln withdrew the invitation to the Virginians. He again proved how close he was to the radicals by endorsing a limited black franchise.

The Assassination
At his second inaugural, Lincoln, attributing the war to the evil consequences of slavery, summed up his attitude in the famous phrase "with malice toward none, with charity for all." A few weeks later, he publicly announced his support for limited black suffrage in Louisiana. This open defiance of conservative opinion could only have strengthened the resolve of one in his audience, John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor of Confederate sympathies, who had long been plotting against the president. Aroused by the prospect of votes for blacks, he determined to carry out his assassination scheme and on April 14, 1865, shot Lincoln at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. The president died the next day.

The subject of numerous myths, Lincoln ranks with the greatest of American statesmen. His humanitarian instincts, brilliant speeches, and unusual political skill ensured his hold on the electorate and his success in saving the Union. That he also gained fame as the Great Emancipator was due to a large degree to his excellent sense of timing and his open-mindedness. Thus, he was able to bring about the abolition of slavery and to advocate a policy of Reconstruction that envisaged the gradual enfranchisement of the freedmen. It was a disaster for the country that he did not live to carry it out.

General William T. Sherman - Civil War
Sherman was born on May 8, 1820, in Lancaster, Ohio, and educated at the U.S. Military Academy. After an undistinguished military career he resigned from the army in 1853 to become a partner in a banking firm in San Francisco.

Gen. William T. ShermanHe was president of a military college in Alexandria, La. (now Louisiana State University) from 1859 to the beginning of 1861, when Louisiana seceded from the Union. At the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, he offered his services to the Union army and was put in command of a volunteer infantry regiment, becoming a brigadier general of volunteers after the first Battle of Bull Run.

Sherman led a division at the Battle of Shiloh (April 6-7, 1862) and was rewarded for his part in the victory by being promoted to major general of volunteers. Later that year he failed in an attempt (Dec. 27-29) to seize the Confederate stronghold of Vicksburg, on the Mississippi River, but in 1863 he fought under Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the campaign that ended in the capture of that city in July. He was given command of the Army of the Tennessee in the fall of 1863 and fought in the Battle of Chattanooga.

In 1864 Sherman was made supreme commander of the armies in the West and was ordered to move against Atlanta, Ga. During the opening months of the campaign, he lost the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain; he did not capture Atlanta until almost three months later, on Sept. 1.

After ordering the burning of the military resources of the city, he launched his most celebrated military action, known as Sherman's march to the sea, in which, with about 60,000 picked men, he marched from Atlanta to Savannah, Ga., on the Atlantic coast. Along the way the men lay waste the intervening territory and severed the Confederate government at Richmond, Va., from its western states. Sherman subsequently set out to join forces with Grant, who was moving southward toward Richmond. After three months of fighting, Sherman managed to reach Raleigh, N.C., where he was in a position to complete the encirclement of Richmond and the city's defending forces, which were led by the Confederate commander in chief Robert E. Lee. Following Lee's surrender on April 9, the Confederate army confronting Sherman surrendered to him at Raleigh, on April 17.

After the war Sherman was commissioned lieutenant general in the regular army and, following Grant's election to the presidency (186 cool , he was promoted to the rank of full general and given command of the entire U.S. Army. Sherman published his Memoirs in 1875 and retired in 1883. The famous phrase "war is hell" is attributed to him.


General Ulysses S. Grant - Civil War

Grant was born at Point Pleasant, Ohio, on April 27, 1822, the son of Hannah Simpson (1798-1883) and Jesse Grant (1794-1873), the owner of a tannery.

Gen. Ulysses S. GrantTaken to nearby Georgetown at the age of one year, he was educated in local and boarding schools. In 1839, under the name of Ulysses Simpson instead of his original Hiram Ulysses, he was appointed to West Point. Graduating 21st in a class of 39 in 1843, he was assigned to Jefferson Barracks, Mo. There he met Julia Dent (1826-1902), a local planter's daughter, whom he married after the Mexican War.

Pre-war Career
During the Mexican War, Grant served under both Gen. Zachary Taylor and Gen. Winfield Scott and distinguished himself, particularly at Molina del Rey and Chapultepec. After his return and tours of duty in the North, he was sent to the Far West. In 1854, while stationed at Fort Humboldt, Calif., Grant resigned his commission because of loneliness and drinking problems, and in the following years he engaged in generally unsuccessful farming and business ventures in Missouri. He moved to Galena, Ill., in 1860, where he became a clerk in his father's leather store.

The Civil War
At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Grant was appointed colonel, and soon afterward brigadier general, of the Illinois Volunteers, and in September 1861 he seized Paducah, Ky. After an inconclusive raid on Belmont, Mo., he gained fame when in February 1862, in conjunction with the navy, he succeeded in reducing Forts Henry and Donelson, Tenn., forcing Gen. Simon B. Buckner to accept unconditional surrender. The Confederates surprised Grant at Shiloh (April 1862), but he held his ground and then moved on to Corinth. In 1863 he established his reputation as a strategist in the brilliant campaign against Vicksburg, Miss., which capitulated on July 4. After being appointed commander in the West, he defeated Braxton Bragg at Chattanooga (November 1863). Grant's victories made him so prominent that he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general and in February 1864 was given command of all Union armies.

Grant's subsequent campaigns revealed his determination to apply relentless pressure against the Confederacy by coordinating the Union armies and exploiting the economic strength of the North. While Grant accompanied the Army of the Potomac in its overland assault on Richmond, Va., Gen. Benjamin F. Butler was to attack the city by water, Gen. William T. Sherman to move into Georgia, and Gen. Franz Sigel (1824-1902) to clear the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Despite the failure of Butler and Sigel and heavy losses at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and Cold Harbor, Grant continued to press the drive against Gen. Robert E. Lee's army. After Sherman's success in Georgia and the conquest of the Shenandoah Valley by Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, Grant forced Lee to abandon Petersburg and Richmond (April 2, 1865) and to surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9.

Road to the Presidency
As commander of the army, Grant soon became enmeshed in the struggles between President Andrew Johnson and Congress. Because of the president's evident pro-Southern tendencies, the general gradually moved closer to the radicals and cooperated with Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton in carrying out the congressional Reconstruction plan for the South. Grant accepted appointment as secretary ad interim after Johnson's dismissal of Stanton, but clashed violently with the president when the Senate ordered Stanton reinstated. Then, as the country's best-known military leader, he became the Republican candidate for president in 1868 and defeated his Democratic rival, Horatio Seymour.

The Presidency
Grant's military experience ill prepared him for his new duties. Faced with major problems of Reconstruction, civil service reform, and economic adjustment, he did not know how to choose proper advisers or to avoid the pitfalls of an age of corruption. Encouraged by the final restoration of all the Southern states to the Union, he honestly tried to carry out congressional Reconstruction, but in the long run was unable to sustain it. Intermittently trying to protect the rights of the freed slaves, he repeatedly intervened but could not prevent the resurgence of white supremacists in all but a few Southern states.

Other problems were equally troublesome. In 1871 Grant appointed a civil service commission headed by George W. Curtis (1824-92) but because of the president's increased reliance on corrupt Republican machines, he was ill fitted to end the system whereby federal jobs were distributed as rewards for political loyalty. Moreover, his inexperience in economic matters and his inordinate respect for wealth rendered him easy prey to scheming adventurers. Thus, in 1869 he was taken in by Jay Gould and James Fisk in their attempt to corner the gold market, which he stopped only at the last moment. In 1872 dissident reformers, breaking with the administration by organizing the Liberal Republican party, nominated Horace Greeley, who also received the Democrats' endorsement, to challenge Grant for reelection. Although the president won easily, his second administration was besmirched by many scandals, including the Crédit Mobilier affair, in which Vice-President Schuyler Colfax and others were accused of taking bribes; the Whiskey Ring, in which Grant's secretary connived with a group of distillers to defraud the government of taxes; and the impeachment of Secretary of War William W. Belknap (1829-90). All contributed to the failure of the administration. In addition, the Panic of 1873 resulted in widespread unemployment and the loss of the House of Representatives to the Democrats.

Only in foreign affairs did Grant have some success. He suffered an initial setback in the Senate, which refused to sanction his dubious scheme to purchase Santo Domingo. Thereafter, however, Secretary of State Hamilton Fish established a distinguished record by settling outstanding difficulties with Great Britain (Treaty of Washington, 1871) and keeping the country clear of the Cuban rebellion against Spain.

Final Years
After retiring from the presidency, Grant took a long trip around the world. Returning in 1879, he became an unsuccessful contender for the presidential nomination, which went to James A. Garfield. In 1881 Grant moved to New York City, where he became a partner in the Wall Street firm of Grant and Ward; he was close to ruin when the company collapsed in 1884. To provide for his family, he wrote his memoirs while fighting cancer of the throat; he died at Mount Gregor, N.Y., on July 23, 1885.

A military genius, Grant possessed the vision to see that modern warfare requires total application of military and economic strength and was thus able to lead the Union to victory. In civilian life, however, he was unable to provide the leadership necessary for a burgeoning industrial nation, even though he always retained the affection of the American public.


Jefferson Davis - Civil War

Davis was born on June 3, 1808, in Christian (now Todd) Co., Ky., and educated at Transylvania University, Lexington, Ky., and at the U.S. Military Academy.

Jefferson DavisAfter his graduation in 1828, he saw frontier service until ill health forced his resignation from the army in 1835. He was a planter in Mississippi from 1835 to 1845, when he was elected to the U.S. Congress. In 1846 he resigned his seat in order to serve in the Mexican War and fought at Monterrey and Buena Vista, where he was wounded. He was U.S. senator from Mississippi from 1847 to 1851, secretary of war in the cabinet of President Franklin Pierce from 1853 to 1857, and again U.S. senator from 1857 to 1861. As a senator he often stated his support of slavery and of states' rights, and as a cabinet member he influenced Pierce to sign the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which favored the South and increased the bitterness of the struggle over slavery. In his second term as senator he became the acknowledged spokesman for the Southern point of view. He opposed, however, the idea of secession from the Union as a means of maintaining the principles of the South. Even after the first steps toward secession had been taken, he tried to keep the Southern states in the Union, although not at the expense of their principles.

When the state of Mississippi seceded, he withdrew from the Senate.

On Feb. 18, 1861, the provisional Congress of the Confederate States made him provisional president. He was elected to the office by popular vote the same year for a 6-year term and was inaugurated in Richmond, Va., the capital of the Confederacy, on Feb. 22, 1862. Davis failed to raise sufficient money to fight the American Civil War and could not obtain recognition and help for the Confederacy from foreign governments. He was in constant conflict with the extreme exponents of the doctrine of states' rights, and his attempts to have high military officers appointed by the president were opposed by the governors of the states. The judges of state courts constantly interfered in military matters through their judicial decisions. Davis was nevertheless responsible for the raising of the formidable Confederate armies, the notable appointment of Gen. Robert E. Lee as commander of the Army of Virginia, and the encouragement of industrial enterprise throughout the South.

His zeal, energy, and faith in the cause of the South were a source of much of the tenacity with which the Confederacy fought the Civil War. Even in 1865 Davis still hoped the South would be able to achieve its independence, but at last he realized defeat was imminent and fled from Richmond. On May 10, 1865, federal troops captured him at Irwinville, Ga. From 1865 to 1867 he was imprisoned at Fortress Monroe, Va. Davis was indicted for treason in 1866 but the next year was released on a bond of $100,000 signed by the American newspaper publisher Horace Greeley and other influential Northerners. In 1868 the federal government dropped the case against him.

From 1870 to 1878 he engaged in a number of unsuccessful business enterprises; and from 1878 until his death in New Orleans, on Dec. 6, 1889, he lived near Biloxi, Miss. His grave is in Richmond, Va. He wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881).


General Pierre Beauregard - Civil War

Confederate general, born near New Orleans, La., and educated at the U.S. Military Academy.

An engineer officer, he served in the Mexican War (1846-4 cool and remained in the U.S. Army until February 1861, when he resigned to join the insurgent Confederate forces; in April he directed the bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston, S.C., the first action of the American Civil War. Beauregard was second in command at the First Battle of Bull Run (July 1861).

At Shiloh (April 1862) he took command when his superior, Gen. Albert S. Johnston, was killed, and he led the Confederate withdrawal from the field. In 1863 he defended Charleston from attack by the Union navy, and in May 1864 he defeated a Union army under Gen. Benjamin F. Butler at Drury's Bluff, Va. After the war Beauregard was president of the New Orleans, Jackson, and Mississippi Railroad and later was adjutant general of Louisiana.


Frederick Douglass - Civil War

American abolitionist, orator, and writer, who escaped slavery and urged other blacks to do likewise before and during the American Civil War.

Frederick DouglassOriginally named Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, Douglass was born on Feb. 7, 1817, in Tuckahoe, Md. He was the son of a slave, Harriet Bailey (d. 1824?), and was largely self-educated. He failed in an attempt to escape in 1836, but two years later he succeeded and reached New Bedford, Mass., where he assumed the name of Douglass.

His career as an abolitionist began dramatically in 1841 at an antislavery convention in Nantucket, Mass., where his impromptu address to the convention revealed him to be an orator of great eloquence. As "a recent graduate from the institution of slavery with his diploma on his back," he was engaged as an agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. His speeches in the following years in the northern states and his work for the UNDERGROUND RAILROAD, (q.v.) did much to further the cause of the abolitionists and made his name a symbol of freedom and achievement among whites and blacks alike.

In 1845, Douglass, at the urging of his friends, went to England to escape the danger of seizure under the FUGITIVE SLAVE LAWS, (q.v.). His lectures in the British Isles on the slavery question in the U.S. aroused sympathy for the abolitionists' cause and prompted his admirers to raise funds to purchase his freedom. After returning to the U.S. in 1847, Douglass became the "station-master and conductor" of the Underground Railroad in Rochester, N.Y., where he also established the abolitionist newspaper North Star, which he edited until 1860.

During these years, Douglass became friendly with the American abolitionist John Brown and was given a hint of Brown's strategy of destroying "the money value of slave property" by training a force of men to help large numbers of slaves escape to freedom in the North via the Underground Railroad. When Douglass learned on the eve of the raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859 that it was Brown's intention to seize the federal arsenal there, he objected. Warning Brown that an attack on the arsenal would be tantamount to an assault on the U.S. government and would prove disastrous, Douglass withdrew from further participation.

After the raid, fearing reprisals by the government, Douglass fled to Europe, where he stayed for six months. On his return to the U.S., he campaigned for Abraham Lincoln during the presidential election of 1860 and, following the outbreak of the Civil War, helped raise two regiments of black soldiers, the Massachusetts 54th and 55th. After the war, Douglass, as a recognized leader of and spokesman for the former black slaves, fought for enactment of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. He became U.S. marshal for the District of Columbia (1877-81), recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia (1881-86), and U.S. minister to Haiti (1889-91). He died in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20, 1895.

So impressive were Douglass's oratorical and intellectual abilities that opponents refused to believe he had been a slave and alleged that he was an impostor foisted on the public by the abolitionists. In reply, Douglass wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), which he revised in later years; in final form, it appeared in 1882 under the title Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.

ohn Wilkes Booth - Civil War

American actor, son of the actor Junius Brutus Booth (1796-1852), born near Bel Air, Md.

John Wilkes BoothFrom 1860 to 1863 he was a successful actor of Shakespearean roles. He was a violent partisan of the cause of the South in the American Civil War and in 1864 organized an unsuccessful conspiracy to abduct President Abraham Lincoln. On the night of April 14, 1865, while Lincoln was sitting in a box at Ford's Theatre, Washington, D.C., Booth shot him in the head, mortally wounding him. Booth jumped down to the stage, breaking his leg, but escaped from the theater. He was overtaken 12 days later in a barn near Bowling Green, Va., and was shot there; theories that he committed suicide or escaped lack proof.