we got this photo in baltimore. it was one of the most expensive photos we paid for. hands down, it was worth it because of how meaningful the picture is. the look on everyone's face. everyone has a very solemn look on their face. you sort of get the feeling this could be the last time the family is meeting together. the guy is fighting for the union and he may never return to his family. also, it's very significant because of our president today. this man has a wife and two young girls just like our president today. it shows how far our country can come in 150 years. >> you can explore the entire collection at the library of congress prints and photographs online catalog.

log on to loc.gov/pictures. >> here on american history tv on c-span 3, we will take you back to the library of virginia and their day long look at the person of the year 1862. on your screen is david blight of yale university. he has chosen frederick douglass as his nominee. he is taking questions here on american history tv. >> jackson's interest. douglass got interested in the racial sciences of the years because they were such scientific clouds hanging over his people. he read everything he could find in the field that was then called ethnology. he wrote a brilliant, actually lecture that he gave at a college in 1856. essentially taking to pieces the

arguments, the biological arguments of the racial sciences. the races were born with different capacities and different shapes and sizes of heads and abilities. some born to labor. et cetera. he spent his life, at times, i think, disgusted and even bored with the constant reference to race. as you may know, when he his wife anna died, he met anna, a free black woman in baltimore when he was a teenager. turns out they had grown up three miles from each other on the eastern shore. they knew common families together. they probably played at the same mill as children and didn't even know it. she died in 1882, the mother of his five children.

long and complicated marriage. after she died, he remarried a year and a half later, a white woman. helen pitts. she had worked as a secretary in his office. they had, by any measure, a deep and abiding love and marriage. traveled the world together. their extraordinary love letters between them. he was savaged in the press. the black press as well as the white press for the most famous black man in the world married a white woman. his own children were not comfortable with it. it was 1884, not 1984 or 2012. his response was generally, thank you very much. i will love and marry whom i wish. which is very modern notion in a time where racial ideas, oh,

god, were so fraught. what he was called to get to your question was a colored man egro. the term "black" was not used that often. he was also called the "n" word lots and lots of times in his life, even onand were fred to a, meet at such and such a street corner. mobs werenized, sometimes to try to attack him at public speeches by that kind of phrasing on alternative posters to the abolitionism posters. this is an deeply american problem of racial identity. he never tried to stop to figure out who his father he knew his father was white. a lot depended on that.

who his half brothers and sisters werethat. he remembered them on the eastern shore. and in fact, when thomas his de 1880s, douglass, by then, a famous man, he went back to the eastern shore, this time with press following thomas ault's death bed in st. michael's, mare you or aren't y? he never found out, which in part of evidence that ault was probably not his ,as to pop that question. i can also tell you on his first ever visit back to maryland's eastern shore, the week after maryland became a fr s 1864, he went back to baltimore

for the first time, free baltimore. he gave a speech. among the people that came up to him afterwards was a black woman, a bit older than him. she walked up and said, frederick, i'm your sister elysia. how are you doing? i named my first son for you. he extended family. black and white. d good deal of energy just trying to figure that out. it makes him, in some ways, a prototype of thousands if not millions of other americans, who either seek to discover the multiracial character of families and their past or who find out about it when someone tells them. yes, sir.

>> did lincoln and douglass meet? >> yes. >> and i'd be interested, what was lincoln's impression? what did lincoln say about >> yes, they met. they met three times. almost a fourth. to make a long story short, the first is in august of 1863 at the white house. not by invitation. douglass kind of forced his way in on the first visit. he went to washington. he got notes of introduction. eventually from the secretary of war as well as senator palmroy. he went to, essentially, levy a protest against the methods by which black troops were recruited. he was recruited in august of 1863. he went to protest against unequal pay for black soldiers

and commissions for black soldiers and treatment of black soldiers. he had been very public in criticizing the administration. douglass came away odd, is the only word you can use, by lincoln. about how lincoln treated him so much like an equal. in fact, there is a speech douglass gives after this several times. this homely way he put it. he said, he made me feel big there. as though like a teenager meeting a great man or something. it was actually two great men meeting one another. lincoln, according to douglass, said, i know about you. i read a lot about you. lincoln also defended himself. lincoln defended how difficult these decisions and choices had been. they met the second time in

august of 1864. during the overland campaign and the stalemate in virginia. lincoln fears he will not be reelected. that is a very real fear in mid and late summer. he is facing mcclellan in the fall. he invites douglass to come to the white house and among other things, asked douglass to become the leader of an effort in cooperation with the union army and the war department to funnel as many slaves as possible out of th out of the upper south and behind union lines and into the north. a gradiose plan. to get as many slaves out of the upper south as much as possible before election day in november,

because if he losies the election, they will turn around the emancipation and the war would be lost. douglass was stunned. here was abraham lincoln. he attacked lincoln for two and a half years or three years. although not in the past year. here was abraham lincoln looking eye-to-eye saying will you funnel the slaves out of tme. douglass said, sure, thank you very much. he went back up north. he sent telegrams and letters across the north. he was trying to put together a team of people. he did for a week or two that would be the agents of the system. and then came the fall of atlanta. and that whole plan was just

completely ignored. and sheridan's successes in the shenandoah valley. that plan was never put in place. the idea that lincoln was asking him to do that is extraordinary. they then met finally at lincoln's second inauguration. and probably running out of time, right? >> let's do one more. >> okay. they meet at the second inauguration in the white house at the reception after the speech, which is a very moving moment. maybe we can talk afterwards. yes, sir. >> would you confirm that his first wife refused to learn to read and write? >> yes, that's true. anna marie douglass remained a non reader and non writer all of her life. it's a complex story. we don't have real good answers for. we don't know if there was some kind of dyslexia or problem.

but what we do know is he hired tutors. his daughter, rosetta, their oldest child, also worked very hard to help her mother learn to read and write. it never succeeded. she and douglass had a deep abiding relationship and love, but a very difficult marriage. let's put it that way. you don't want me to go into the details of that. her illiteracy was a serious problem and issue. both in their relationship and in how the family communicated. there were lots of letters that douglass writes to rosetta or lewis as they reach adulthood or before. he would say tell mother this, tell mother that. she was a great homemaker. about every major reformer from great britain in the united

states, name an abolitionist that came through douglass house at some point and had tea. anna served tea and left the room. while the great man spoke to men, women, reformers, abolitionists, all, often not in her presence. however, when she died in 1882, he came apart and boarded up her room in the cedar hill house. he won't let anyone in. i don't know that what that means either. i will have something to say about that. i don't know what it is yet. it's a classic problem of a man who became a world-class intellectual and, indeed, his spouse, was by and large, not part of that intellectual world.

it is the 19th century, however, and not the 21st century. her children, the four who survived, they had another child that died in infancy or as a child. her children were loyal to her. although deeply loyal to their father, too. it had a good deal to do with why they resented the second marriage. [ applause ] thank you. >> thank you, waite. >> thank you so much. >> sure. >> david, if you can go down here. bob krick said, by the way, they are taking questions from all across the country on the c-span audience. bob krick said during his session on the phone with the c-span audience, they were getting questions from across

the country. i think it is a great way to reach our wonderful audience with the great series of historians. so there we have it. two of the five. we have stonewall jackson and frederick douglass. let's go have lunch. lunches are in order of alphabet. look for your name and i hope you know how to spell it. we will reconvene here at 12:40 to get restarted with jim mcphearson.

>> american history tv on c-span 3. we are bringing you coverage from the library of virginia in richmond with a look at the person of the year 1862. the premise is if "time" magazine was around in 1862, who would they choose as person of the year. we heard from robert krick and david blight. david blight choosing frederick

douglass for his choice of person of the year 1862. robert krick chose thomas stonewall jackson. we will open up our phone lines here to take your calls so you get a chance to talk to david blight momentarily. if you are on east coast, the number is 202-585-3885. mountain and pacific, 202-585-3886. if you want to tweet us us, #poty1862. we have a tweet from someone who agree was professor blight. i think frederick douglass should be person of the year 1862. we are posting the question on our facebook page. if you want to look at facebook and post your comments, you are welcome to do that. a couple here.

steven says, lincoln was person of the year every year he was president. i suppose next to abe in 1862, you have to choose robert e. lee. david blight joins us from the library in virginia. he will take your phone calls. david blight, welcome to american history tv. >> thank you very much. glad to be here. >> frederick douglass was born a slave, but in eastern shore of maryland, how did he become such an interesting part of the abolitionist movement? >> he did not become part of the abolitionist movement until he escaped in 1820. he was already conditioned, one might say, with a powerful and abiding story. he escaped from slavery at age 20. disguised as a sailor with a few dollars in his pocket and a copy of one book. he escaped by three ferry boats

and two train rides to new york city. then on to new bedford, massachusetts. in new bedford, he worked as a day laborer until about 1839 or 1840. he escaped in 1838. he began to speak at a black church. the africa methodist zion church of new bedford. it was there that he was discovered as an orator in his fledgeling youth. he was discovered by william lloyd garrison's society. they invited him to an event on nantucket island. he gave his first abolitionist speech. he was so effective at telling his other than personal story as

a slave, that the garrisons hired him and took him on the road. was probably the most sought-after abolitionist speaker on the entire northern circuit. >> we have lots of folks waiting on the line to talk to you professor blight. let's hear from david. welcome. >> caller: hello, professor blight. thank you so much. i would absolutely have to agree with you on the importance of frederick douglass. i always considered that douglas was a member of a triumph vert of people who helped define america's reconstruction. i would be anxious to learn, to be the person waking in the political severe, and douglass in the severe. can you comment how douglass may

have interacted with two people. we know that president grant was a great proponent as a president to try to elevate it? >> well, that's a very effective way of putting it. lincoln and military leader and douglass is the moral voice. douglass has a role in what you describe as the long trajectory of the transformation of american public and the transformation of american freedom. it came because of the only weapon he had. he was never allowed to run for elective office. actually, he could have run for elective office in the south, and during reconstruction in a short period of time, but elected office was never for douglass and the military was never really his option. although there were those during the war who criticized him at

times and suggested he should go join the union army. instead, he recruited his own son, by then, of course, he was 45 and 46 years old. so it has a moral voice, douglass has a place in it. he had been giving the country a narrative in argument and almost infinite supply of metaphors through which you try to imagine the recreation of american public, rooted in the destruction of slavery and the transformation of the constitution. one of the great facts or even irony, frederick douglass' life, born in 1818, died in 1905. if you look at the trajectory of his life. he's in his mid-40s during the civil war. he lives to see the triumph, to use your word, the triumph and cause of adult life arguing but

competitively never believing he would ever see that triumph. but he then also lived another 30 years. he lived another 30 years to see the virtual betrayal of that triumphant cause. so there's a trajectory of do dougla douglass' life, call it moral, call it temporal, whatever you want. he is relationship with lincoln is very complex. he met ling three times ai said here in the lecture. he meets grant, of course, not until the reconstruction here. he ends up meeting grant, in fact, at the white house, he campaigns vociferously, vehemently for grant. and grant finally appointed him as part of the commission to haiti. that was a complicated appointment that douglass never

felt very good about the way he was treated. but he saw grant as the leader of the party that had in effect to his people, and to his dying day, he was a strong defender of grant, not only as the war hero. but even as the president who what presided at least over the triumvirate reconstruction. >> let's go to seattle, matthew on the line with david blight. >> caller: hi, thank you. i was just wondering if douglass is going to win with the crowd there? >> well, it's a very frank and good question. i'll give you a frank answer, i don't think i have a prayer. but i gave it my best shot as it were. and who knows, right? it depends on whether people -- i think in the end here, however people wish to vote on such a thing, it's probably going to be

not about the complexion of the skin, as much as it's going to be whether they believe the most pivotal actions by leaders in 1862 were on the battlefield. or in the realm, moral realm, the political etiological round in which frederick douglass operated. douglass operated by the voice and the pen. i'm up against here -- we don't know what's coming yet. we're getting more soldiers, i'm you're we're getting more soldiers. >> our caller from seattle say good reminder that this won't be decided until the end of the day until all five of the historians are heard from. a couple more calls for david blight. let's hear from al, new york city, welcome. >> caller: yes, hello, professor

blight. i enjoy always the c-span forums, especially on civil war history. and i wanted to ask you, regarding the recruitment of black troops in which douglass participated in, did he feel it should have been done earlier? more aggressively? >> oh, yeah. >> caller: or did, like many people, have to wait for the political realm, the shift of more of lincoln faith? >> well, of course, both parts of question are true. douglass with the black troops and union army from june of 1861. you can go back and read his editorials and published speeches that argue that vehemently. he demands in the first summer of the war that those black militias that are marching on town greens across the north be allowed in the union army. there were black men desiring

and offering to enlist right up before sumpter. and douglass was advocating. he was advocating even more strongly in 1862. once it finally came, of course, douglass was not only grateful, he joined the cause by becoming one of the principle recruiters of black soldiers. he was one of the principle recruiters of the famous 44th black regiment, organized. his first two recruits, by the way, were his own two sons. his 19-year-old son charles and his 20-year-old son lewis. >> caller: wow. >> that's something to contemplate, a father recruiting his own sons into the army. david blight, we'll let you go in a minute. i know there's lunch waiting. one more call from chicago, this is richard. richard, go ahead.

>> caller: okay, david, how are you doing? what i'd like to know if frederick would come now, what would he think of barack obama as america's first black president? and also do you feel that he would feel that same change, or the change would stay the same in terms of the way some of the republicans are treating america's first black president? >> well, there's two parts to your question, first, he no doubt -- of course, we don't know, he in ve been -- by the election of an african-american as a president. he would have been maybe less surprised than the rest of us because he would not have lived through this terrible racial history from the turn of the 20th century to the president. he would not have lived through

jim crowe. so the thing you can be rest assured about, if frederick douglass were alive today, he could no longer be a republican. that party of lincoln and that party of grant that he so vehemently defended, promoted, stood for, voted for, worked for, all of the last 30 years of his life is no longer the same party at all. the modern contemporary republican party has become essentially the american white conservative party, let's face it. and douglass would have no home there. now, history changes. parties move on. people move on. new political persuasions. new issues. as coalitions grow, you would understand that. but i can tell you if we can guess at one thing, he would resent current modern-day