it s a fairly new theory. and i wanted you to comment on it. and that is that the friendly fire that wounded jackson at chancellorsville may not have been the localized event we think of it as today and that it was something more like a sympathetic reactionary rolling tide that started actually maybe miles away. as it moved along a line of fire, it ended up wounding him and killing some of his staff and that same reactionary sympathetic fire also wounded a.b. hill. could you comment on that? well, i have written an extensive chapter with lots of footnotes, so you can read the footnotes for yourself and decide. it s called it s the title chapter of my book called the smooth bore volley that doomed the confederacy. it s documented this ripple of fire which moved up the line and eventually came to where jackson was wasn t miles away, it was three-quarters of a mile away to the south down a straight line of confederate troops. on their far right, they ran into a gaggle of f
owner was to be thomas auld, who sent him back to baltimore to live with his brother, hugh. again, i would stress had he not had the fortune of going to baltimore, of living in this urban environment, we probably wouldn t even know who he was. it was in baltimore that douglass sort of began to see pieces of the world. he lived two blocks from the docks of baltimore s harbor. a major american seaport. it was there he began to learn a craft as a caulker, it was there he got in his first street fights. he had to defend himself. it was there that he had to learned clandestine ways to hide his fascination with language, to smuggle newspapers under his pillow in his loft bed and try to read at night by a candle. it was there that he began to learn that the worst part of slavery wasn t physical bondage, it was psychological bondage. it was there that he learned he had to find his own ways to mentally survive. he was once again sent back to the eastern shore as a 16-year-old teenager
where he moved in part for security and safety for himself and his family, even though at that point, his legal freedom was purchased that very year by his british friends. he would no longer have to live as a fugitive slave. but rochester was to a degree an enclave of anti-slavery neighbors. he is in at this point the 15th year of editing the longest lasting black anti-slavery newspaper ever, then known as douglass monthly. earlier known as the north star. he travels constantly as the single most sought after anti-slavery orator in the land. he is at this point in 1862, the author of more than 1,000 editorials in his newspapers and in many other anti-slavery newspapers, hundreds and hundreds of speeches, some of which are already regarded as the rhetorical masterpieces of american reform and of abolitionism. he is the author of two autobiographies. the first published in 1845 when he was but 28 years old called narrative of the life of frederick douglass, an american s
mics on either side. over. you mentioned how for douglass metaphor or the importance of the word was truly important. i d like to know your opinion so that for us in 2012, what do you think of reference to douglass is biracial supposed to black or african-american or perhaps now with by racial, we could say an african-american american? i suppose he would probably appreciate the double hyphen i suppose in some way. well, first of all, his racial identity was very, very much a part of his public persona everywhere he went, both positive and negative, often very negative depending on the audience. he was constantly fending off in his time the charge that his great intelligence, his abilities with words, et cetera, et cetera, must come from his white patrimony and surely not from his slave mother. it s very interesting how douglass treated this question of race. he got deeply interested in ethnography. mr. krick mentioned jackson s interest in phrenology. whoa, douglass go
security and safety for himself and his family, even though at that point, his legal freedom was purchased that very year by his british friends. he would no longer have to live as a fugitive slave. but rochester was to a degree an enclave of anti-slavery neighbors. he is in at this point the 15th year of editing the longest lasting black anti-slavery newspaper ever, then known as douglass monthly. earlier known as the north star. he travels constantly as the singlemost sought after anti-slavery orator in the land. he is at this point in 1862, the author of more than 1,000 editorials in his newspapers and in many other anti-slavery newspapers, hundreds of hundreds of speeches, some of which are already regarded as the rhetorical masterpieces of american reform and of abolitionism. he is the author of two autobiographies. the first published in 1845. when he was but 28 years old called narrative of the life of frederick douglasss, an american slave, already a classic by