that those would have translated on to a larger stage. it really is. >> you're going to be joined by four other historians today presenting their case for person of the year 1862, in that field. who do you think some of the other contestants will be? >> i'm quite sure someone been talk about general lee. emory thomas has written a good biography of lee. i would guess that's where he would go. i have no inside information. there will be some political figures. someone suggested on one of your blogs abraham lincoln should get the attention. that would make a good bit more sense were it not in this context that last year he was the man of the year in 1861 in this particular venue. almost surely he will not be mentioned this year. he was last year's man. he had his inning. >> robert krick, we have a couple of phone calls waiting, if you can stay with us. we'll hear from spotsylvania, virginia. hi, vince, go ahead with your comments. >> mr. krick, can i recently heard a theory attributed to you.

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 federals, captured a federal jeb general in the process and seems to have spread up the line. i think that's pretty surely what happened. but you can decide for yourself with all the evidence in front of you if you look at that chapter. i would add that hill was in fact not wounded, which is pretty remarkable. jackson was about 100 yards away from the smooth bore muskets which an amazing number of confederates were still carrying with the war half over in may of 1863. he was just about at the extreme range for those muskets and hill was right next to them but they missed hill and hit jackson. >> we have a call from nearby fredericksburg, virginia. go ahead, peter. peter in fredericksburg, welcome. go ahead with your comment. >> bob, as usual, we enjoy your talks. i was wondering if you would care to comment on jackson's actions in the second manassas campaign, the antietam campaign and also the fredericksburg campaign which concluded in

1862. and whether you feel that it enhanced his qualifications for man of the year or was he just a really superior super subordinate executing lee's work? >> well, all three of those campaigns jackson did very well in. fredericksburg, the battle was pretty much a set piece, the most rigidly set piece battle of the war in the east. federals attacking, confederates resisting without a lot of movement. sharpsburg involved a lot of movement but not as much as subsequently chancellorsville. second manassas, though, was a masterpiece. it's directly attributable to jackson's execution of the joint plan that he and lee had crafted. and it certainly contributes mightily to the success of the confederacy. there's a very interesting quote from lee that pertains to all of this.

and that is in the fall of 1862 when the confederate congress finally authorized the creation of lieutenant general's rank -- northerners never did get that far. they created corps legally officially and lieutenant generals to command those corps. lee proposed that jackson and longstreet be given the two lieutenant general billlets and the two corps commands in the northern army of virginia. in acknowledgement of jackson's failure although the public didn't recognize it, everyone in the army did, jefferson davis inquired of lee, are you sure that jackson deserves this? now, davis's letter to lee saying that does not survive so far as i know but it can be interpolated from lee's response which was ever since the seven days, jackson has been everything i expected him to be or could want him to be. so that's a nice rubric for rest of 1862 for thomas jackson. >> robert krick joins us from

the library of virginia, one of five historians looking at the person of the year 1862. we'll take a couple more calls. we also have a comment on facebook, a comment about the role of thomas stonewall jackson. matthew lowenstein says that richmond would fall in the spring of 1862 without him. what do you think of that? >> the parallel universe, the counterfactual world is wide open for all of us to speculate. but i'm with him. it is hard to imagine without jackson coming down from the valley onto the exposed federal wing even though that did not work nearly as well as it was hoped would, as it ought to have done, without jackson here, it's hard to imagine lee succeeding. skillful though he was, mcclellan had too many people. so i'm with him. i'm not opposed to that notion at all. >> let's go to joe in new york. joe, welcome to the conversation. >> hello. i have a question regarding jackson's valley campaign. prior to the battle of port

republic at cross keys, richard euell thought that battle almost independently without the knowledge of jackson. >> that's right. >> can one assume that the two had a good relation, or did it just happen that that's the way the battle was fought? >> the two by this time did not have a really good relation. you heard my quotes three weeks earlier. euell was calling him all sorts of names, was writing home that jackson was insane. he was coming around by now. this is about the point as which he had admitted to one of his fellow officers that he had been wrong about jackson. but they were hardly on really close terms. jackson did come to cross keys once during the day. did not get all the way to the front apparently. had almost no impact on it. that is dick euell's battle first last and always. more than anything it's isaac

ridgway trimble's battle at a tactical level. it's not a masterpiece of operations or anything else. it's a holding action against fremont. fremont was an incredibly successful explorer in the west and apparently just a hell of a guy in almost every way but he was not that capable a military man. and holding him back from closing in down toward port republic which was essential, euell did well but on the other hand, it was not an enormous chore either by most standards. >> we have another new york caller on the line. bernie is in brooklyn. hello, go ahead. >> yes, good morning. when davis appointed lee as command of the army of virginia, was jackson ever considered? and if he was, what was the rationale? was the rationale that you presented that he couldn't get along with his underlings or -- >> lee was appointed to command

the army of northern virginia just after the serious wounding of joe johnston during the battle of seven pines the evening of the last day of may. in 1862. lee took command two days later after a brief interval when smith commanded the army. there was no question that lee was the man for the job. he was here in richmond. he had the rank. jackson would not have been considered. he wasn't even on the long, long, long slate to consider that. his rank was not high enough. his experience was not high enough. lee was the obvious choice. and jackson was not even a candidate. after he had reached lieutenant general's rank late in 1862 is when there might have been the question to which i addressed myself about commanding one of the larger armies while lee took another one. after jackson had the rank next to that of army commander. but people were not jumped two ranks under any circumstances that i can think of. so he wasn't on the slate. he was not a candidate. >> richard is in concord,

massachusetts on the line for us. thanks for joining us here on american history tv. >> thank you for having me. i'm glad to see that someone has picked stonewall. i've been talking about him being the man of the year for the last year or so. but my question is, as historians we usually don't speculate in what could have happened. but i would like your opinion as to what you think might have happened had general jackson lived past may of 1863. >> i alluded during the formal presentation to the fact that the single question i've been most asked is what kind of like that only more specific what if jackson had been at gettysburg. it's impossible to foretell what would have happened, needless to say. that is patently obvious. but the question really, what if jackson had been at gettysburg is people are wanting to hoist him in to the foot of east cemetery hill in the vicinity of culp's hill at the end of july 1 with things having unfolded as they had. that's not a legitimate question.

although it's kind of fun to think about. this is like the ancient greeks with the god and the machine. they would hoist in a figure to resolve all of the issues at the end of the play. dropping jackson in there just doesn't work historically because had jackson lived, instead of three confederate corps under lee going north and winding up at gettysburg there would have been only the two. without reorganization, presumably it would have been longstreet and jackson. and every day, every hour of every day as those folks moved through the country roads in western maryland and south central pennsylvania, the options to turn this way or at this for the two corps instead of the three corps as it wound up were limitless. jackson with his drive might have the fought the famous battle at harrisburg or cleveland, ohio, or who knows where. dropping him into gettysburg isn't legitimate. having said that i would have no doubt he would have gone up east cemetery hill and that would have been the end of the battle of gettysburg. could you have dropped him

there, which you couldn't have, but that's a good question. >> we have a couple more quick calls before the program resumes at the library of virginia. let's hear from carol in ann arbor, michigan. go ahead. >> and good morning, sir. i wanted to tell you how fascinating this is. i am in ann arbor, michigan. the program is so very interesting for those of us who aren't in your region. we did live in michigan or we lived in richmond for a couple years and went to all these battlefields and studied and learned about it. and i wanted to let you know there are still re-enactments up here and people who are very interested in michigan in the civil war in studying it. so thank you for airing this nationally. and for bringing such fascinating speakers. >> well, i should admit that i lived in michigan for a few years. i was very, very young. my theory is it did me no harm in the long-term because i was so young and moved on to california. i'm glad to hear about the interest out there and i hope you will parlay that into support for preserving the battlefields. get on the internet and go look

for civil war.org is the biggest of the groups, doing a spectacular job. it needs support from everyone. >> and robert krick, we thank you for joining us. just to recap, robert krick the first of five historians here at the library of virginia in richmond, talking about the person of the year 1862. once again, mr. krick, thanks for taking phone calls from viewers. >> yes, sir. >> just a couple of minutes, the program will resume with a different perspective. david blight who is from yale university from their center for the study of slavery, resistance and abolition. we'll hear his nomination. we'll be back with phone calls in about 45 or 50 minutes or so. but you can continue the conversation online as well if you can go to twitter.com/c-span, our handle is c-span history. and also use the hash tag poty

1862. person of the year, 1862. we'll try to take a look at some of those tweets after the next historian speaks. also at facebook.com/c-span, the question is posted there. we'll read some of those throughout the day, as well. watching live coverage. you're watching live coverage from the university of -- from the library of virginia in richmond. it is an event co-hosted by the library and also by the museum of the confederacy. once again, robert krick the first of five historians who will speak today. david blight is coming up next. we'll also hear from james mcpherson, the historian james mcpherson. all of that on the way today here on american history tv on c-span 3.

ladies and gentlemen, if you could return to your seats, we'll get restarted in just a moment. okay. let's get restarted if we could. our next speaker, i mentioned earlier, he's a detroit tigers fan. i think the reason that he particularly likes richmond is that we sent justiner have lander to the tigers. but david blight is a familiar face here in richmond. coming down from connecticut quite frequently to speak with us in the virginia historical society and the american civil war center. david has done quite a bit to

help our understanding here and nationally about the civil war. david is the class of 1954 professor at yale university. excuse me, professor of american history at yale university and he's also the director of the gilder lehrman center for the study of slavery resistance in abolition. best known to civil war audiences as the author of the 2001 book "race and reunion, the civil war and american history." he has recently published for the civil war sesquicentennial a perceptive look at the civil war centennial entitled "american oracle." ladies and gentlemen, it's a pleasure to welcome back to the museum and to the confederacy, and to you today david blight. [ applause ]

>> thank you very much, waite. good morning. >> good morning. >> i have one rule i always try to enforce whenever i'm speaking in the south. i can't quite do it every time but it's to have at least emory thomas on my flank. i never go anywhere in the south without emory if i can help it. just kidding. what a thrill it was last year to be in charleston for the 150th with emory on one side and bud robertson on the other. and i got away with it. >> and with jim mcpherson on my other flank today, i'm likely to get out alive. it is always a thrill to do anything with the museum of the confederacy, i owe the book race and reunion in part to the fantastic collection of the

museum of the confederacy. there is no better place to study the memorial, period of the confederacy than in those collections. and in those years i was doing that research, john and ruth ann even used to let me in early. doesn't get any better than that. i was seldom whipped by my old master. and suffered little from anything else than hunger and cold. he would be whipped mercilessly by two subsequent masters. i suffered much from hunger but much more from cold. and hot as summer and coldest winter, i was kept almost naked. no shoes, no stockings, no jacket, no trousers, nothing on but a coarse towel linen shirt reaching only to my knees. i had no bed.

i must have perished with cold. but that the -- but that the coldest nights, i used to steal a bag which was used for carrying corn to the mill. i would call into this bag and there sleep on the cold, damp, clay floor. with my head in and the feet out. my feet have been so cracked with the frost that the pen with which i am writing might be laid into the gashes. that man's pen and the voice from which it came changed the world. he changed the world with metaphors. like a former slave's pen laid

in the gashes of his feet. the person whose story i tell today had not yet fired a shot in anger in this war by 1862. so far as i know, he never actually shouldered a firearm any time in his life. he did not attend west point. nor the u.s. naval academy. he has never held any elective office to this point in time. and never would. sorry. that's post-1862. nor does he have any formal education in american schools or colleges of higher learning. he has no family pedigree our society would consider even worth noting. his very existence as an adult free man at age 44 in this dark

and distracted year of 1862 required of him physical resistance, great emotional resilience, intellectual cunning extraordinary bravery, and blatant law breaking. well before the secession crisis, the amassing of the great armies in the fields of virginia, before the battles of bull run and shiloh, long before the horrible battles of the seven days around richmond here, before the bloody day at antietam in maryland in september of 1862, my subject was and is a surviving veteran of an older, longer war. that state of war, the country

called slavery and that the world called slavery. humankind's ancient desire and capacity to exploit and make property of its fellow human beings. if we could have the pictures there. i brought a photo. this guy is so handsome, i figure it enhances my chances to finish at least fifth -- or fourth. i don't know if lee is going to show up today or not. and i know lee was i an gorgeous guy, too. but check him out. my subject, of course, is frederick douglass. he was born frederick augustus washington bailey on the holme hill farm along the tuckahoe river in talbot county on maryland's eastern shore in february 1818. a little more on that background in just a moment.

in this year 1862, frederick douglass resides in rochester, new york, where he moved in 1847 after his return from a more than two-year sojourn in great britain. 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 slave," already a classic by the 1850s through multiple editions, a best selling book by any measure in the 19th century and ten years later, a second autobiography entitled "my

bondage and my freedom," 1855, where he carries the story up to the middle of the 1850s, a more mature and in some ways more personally revealing, and much more politically ideological autobiography than the first. both of those books had attained literary, true literary fame in the united states and in britain as the best exemplars, or some of the best exemplars at least of the american genre of the memoir tradition. at this point in time in 1862, frederick douglass is the most famous and important black person, or at the time, he would have been called an american negro or a colored man in the world. his name and his visage already tied inextricably to america's peculiar and now bloody struggle

over slavery and freedom in the world's model republic destroying itself by 1862. in this year of 1862, as the civil war grinds on in its terrible path from a conflict of limited aims, southern political independence and the preservation of a social order and an economic system as it is in the south on one side and the preservation of a national union, an intact united states on the other. as those limited war aims are being transformed all around us, as the scale and purpose of the war were undergoing a revolution to determine whether racial slavery will survive this war or

become, in great part, the reason one side or the other may win or lose this struggle. no american in reality or symbolically looms more important than the most famous fugitive slave in the world, frederick douglass. a little more on his background. he was the son of harriet bailey. and in all likelihood, her white master, although we don't know for sure and he never knew. he came into the world in probably the cabin of his grandmother, betsy bailey, who had a cabin and a relatively independent sort of economic life and more than 20 children

dependent on her at a bend in the tuckahoe river in maryland's eastern shore. betsy bailey, his grandmother, was a master fisher woman who would wade out into the tuckahoe river with her shad nets. she was a sort of queen of the neighborhood. she was the only semblance of a parental figure douglass really had. at age 6, douglass was sent to live at the plantation owned by colonel edward lloyd, former governor of maryland. during his two years living at the plantation, which he called the great house farm, frederick saw his mother for the last time in 1825 when he was nearly 7 years old. she died the following year. he had virtually no real memory of her, but he kept trying to invent her. at one point, he saw an image of

one of the egyptian kings. ramses iii, v, i forgot. and though a male figure, there was such beauty in the face, he decided hmm, that's what my mother looked like. he never knew the identity of his father, but he never stopped trying to find out. the two likely candidates were aaron anthony, his first owner or thomas auld, his second owner. he never truly would know and we still don't. he was sent to live in baltimore to be the companion in 1827 of tommy auld, the nephew of his owner, thomas auld. and so he went. one of the first great breaks of douglass' life was indeed

becoming an urban slave boy because it was there that his mistress, sophia auld taught him the alphabet, gave him language. something his owners would live to regret. as did maybe others. no one took to words and language quite like this kid. we can't explain entirely his extraordinary gift for the music of words. the music of language that he heard in his head. but he did have a few sort of teachers. and one of them was sophia auld. until her husband, hugh, ordered her after most of a year, stop teaching that slave boy words and language. slaves are not to be literate. but nothing could stop him. he learned a lot about language