“I am your fellow man, but not your slave, Frederick Douglass.”
This is the story of self-education, self-emancipation, overcoming adversity, bad and good luck, and the abolitionist cause.
Born into slavery in Maryland, Frederick is ripped from his mother, never knows his father, but quickly realizes the power of literacy. Against the odds, the Baltimore-living youth teaches himself to read and write behind his master’s back.
But despite his evident naturally intelligence, he’s soon sent back to the plantations of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, where Frederick endures the worst of slave life as he’s beaten weekly by “slave-breaker” Edward Covey. This only comes to an end when Frederick daringly stands up for himself, incredibly breaking the slave-breaker.
The audacious young man goes to the plantation of the much kinder William Freeland, but is nonetheless determined to have his freedom, damn the consequences. And those consequences can be great. Caught runaways are often sold to even greater miseries farther south. Godspeed, Frederick--we’re rooting for you.
61: The Louisiana Native Guard, the 54th Massachusetts & On: Black Soldiers in the Civil War
60: Gettysburg
59: Stone’s River, Suspending Habeas Corpus, Vicksburg, & Stonewall’s Death at Chancellorsville
58: Conscription & Riots (“A Rich Man’s War, But a Poor Man’s Fight”)
57: Recap of The Civil War's First Half (1861-63)
56: The Battle of Fredericksburg and the First Campaign of Vicksburg
55: The Road to The Emancipation Proclamation
54: The Best Opening Scenes in HTDS History
53: A Civil War Christmas with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
52: From Second Bull Run, or Second Manassas to Antietam, or Sharpsburg
51: A Change in Command: Seven Days Battles to the Battle of Cedar Mountain
50: Mississippi Valley 1862: The Battles of New Orleans, Corinth, Memphis, and Vicksburg
49: From Little Mac McClellan to Stonewall Jackson: The Peninsula and Shenandoah Valley Campaigns
48: The Battle of Shiloh: “Now boys, pitch in!”
47: Bull Run, Trent Affair, the Merrimack, & Fort Donelson: The Early Days of the Civil War
46: The Civil War Begins: Fort Sumter, Secession, & Raising Armies
45: Volume IV Epilogue
44: Abraham Lincoln Becomes President of the Divided States of America
43: Honest Abe, the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, & John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry
42: Solomon Northup’s 12 Years a Slave
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