Rochester[, N.Y.] 21 Nov[ember] 1863[.]

MY DEAR FRIEND:

I am, you see, still at home, I however, shall leave here on Monday for Boston to say “good bye,” to Charley who expects to start from that city soon, in company with two hundred men, to fill up the broken ranks of the 54^{[.]1Because of ongoing health problems, Charles Douglass did not, in fact, accompany the rest of his unit to South Carolina, where it joined the Fifty-fourth in the field. Instead, he was asked to remain in Massachusetts and assist in recruitment activities. In March 1864, Charles was transferred to the Fifth Massachusetts Cavalry and appointed first sergeant. Shortly after, the regiment was de-ployed to participate in the abortive Bermuda Hundred Campaign (outside Richmond, Virginia) and then to guard Confederate prisoners in southern Maryland. Because of continuing problems with his lungs, Charles was discharged from the service in September 1864. Colin Powell, foreword to Blatt, Brown, and Yacovone, , xv-xx; Greene, , 85; Sernett, , 242. I shall spend a few days in Boston and proceed to New York, where I am to lecture in Cooper Institute, on the 30 November,2Douglass did not lecture at Cooper Hall in New York City until 13 January 1864, when he delivered his “The Mission of the War” lecture. New York Daily Tribune, 14 January 1864; , ser. 1, 4:3-24. shall come thence to Philadelphia—speak a few words to the Lyceum on the second December, remain and attend the Decade meeting on the third and 4th3Douglass attended the thirtieth-anniversary celebration of the American Anti-Slavery Soci-ety at Philadelphia’s Concert Hall on 3-4 December 1863 and delivered a major speech on the event’s second day, rebutting William Lloyd Garrison’s sentiment that the day for abolitionist organizations was drawing near its end. ., 29 January 1864; , ser. 1, 3:598-609.
and leave on the 6 for Washington where I am to Speak on the 7[.]4Douglass spoke in Washington, D.C., on 7-8 December 1863 in the company of John Mercer Langston, of Ohio, at the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church on behalf of the Contraband Relief Society. , ser. 1, 3:xxxvi. My Lecture here on the 17 was a very great Success—Corinthian Hall being full, and hundreds leaving unable to gain admission.5Douglass delivered his lecture “The Mission of the War” on 17 December 1863 at Rochester’s Corinthian Hall. , ser. 1, 3:xxxvi.}

The war news for a day or two past has not raised my spirits much—but I am yet sanguine that the war will end in the freedom of the Slave and in the elevation of the Colored man. If this result shall only come, I shall be content to spend the balance of my life in retirasy. Tell, Dear William⁶William Henry Dorsey (1837-1923) was the eldest child and only son of Douglass’s friends Thomas and Louise Tobias Dorsey. In 1859 he married Virginia Cashen, a dressmaker from Georgia, with whom he had six children. In 1860 he was working as a waiter, but from 1870 until his death, Dorsey consistently listed his occupation as artist in city directories and on the census. Although he had no formal training as a painter, he studied under an Austrian artist named Antonio Zeno Shindler, and while he never exhibited outside Philadelphia, he contributed paintings to numerous local exhibitions, beginning in the 1880s. He occasionally worked as an artist for the Philadelphia . From 1879 until 1881, he held his only regular salaried job as a special messenger to the mayor of Philadel-phia. For most of his life, his income consisted of what he earned as an artist, money that he received from a trust that his father had set up in 1876, and his own investments in real estate. In 1897 he was one of five cofounders of the American Negro Historical Society in Philadelphia. 1860 U.S. Census, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia County, 464; 1870 U.S. Census, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia County, 55; 1880 U.S. Census, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia County, 8; 1920 U.S. Census, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia County, 4B; Lane, , 1-2, 77, 110, 122-25. that while I should have been glad to see him in some office connected with the war, I am glad that he has not gone as a private. The hardships of a private are painful to think of. You will have seen, that Massachusetts has done by her Colored Soldiers as I predicted it would do. The State will pay the men precisely as white soldiers are paid—and let the old people at Washington do as they please about wicking out their reproach. I do not doubt however, that, Congress will at once do the honorable thing about the pay, if it does not about promotion.

Congress was the first to respect the claims of justice and obey the instinctive judgment of the people, in fixing the fraud of its reprobation upon slavehunting in shoulder straps⁷This is a reference to the policy, adopted by at least some Union commanders (whose insignia denoting rank were carried on the shoulder straps of their uniforms), of returning runaway slaves to their masters in the early months of the Civil War. Lacking clear guidance from the federal government on how to respond to the appearance of thousands of slaves seeking freedom behind Union lines, some generals, such as George B. McClellan, chose to use their troops to return slaves to their masters, while others issued orders to free all slaves in the areas under their command. Neither action was supported by President Lincoln. Stationed in Virginia in May 1861, the Union general Benjamin Butler, a lawyer in civilian life, declared runaway slaves under his jurisdiction to be contraband, or property taken during war. Following Butler’s lead, in August of that same year Congress passed the First Confiscation Act, which authorized the seizure of all property, including slaves, used in aid of the rebellion. Interpreted loosely, this law provided a legal justification for Union commanders to stop returning slaves to their masters. Reid Mitchell, (2001; New York, 2013), 27-29; Noralee Frankel, “Breaking the Chains, 1860-1880,” in , ed. Robin D. G. Kelley and Earl Lewis, 2 vols. (New York, 2005), 1:230; Martin A. Klein, (Boston, 2002), 95; Heidler and Heidler, , 4:1996.—and my belief is that that body will show progress at its present meeting. Large bodies move slow but they move—and sometimes move far more swiftly than we give them Credit for. We have recently had a lecture here⁸On the evening of 13 November 1863, Anna E. Dickinson made her first public appearance in Rochester, New York, at Corinthian Hall. Her lecture “The Duties of the Hour” offered a rousing endorsement of President Lincoln, support for the Union cause, and praise for the gallantry of the nation’s black soldiers. Although the Rochester had nothing but praise for Dickinson’s performance, the paper reported that its chief rival, the Rochester , characterized the audience as mostly comprising “spirit rappers,” attendees of the “women’s rights and Bloomer conventions,” and “women who lead their husbands by a string,” and described the lecture as a combination of “free-loveism, abolitionism, and all other isms . . . set to destroy American institutions.” Rochester (N.Y.) 14, 16 November 1863. from Miss Anna Dickenson,⁹Anna Elizabeth Dickenson (1842-1932), Philadelphia-born and Quaker-educated, was employed first as a copyist, then as a schoolteacher, and finally in the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. At the age of eighteen, she first appeared on lecture platforms as a feminist and antislavery crusader. After she lost her job at the mint in December 1861 for accusing General George B. McClellan of treason, she became a full-time lecturer. Throughout the Civil War, Dickinson delivered Republican campaign speeches in New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, and Pennsylvania, and on 16 January 1864 she spoke before a distinguished audience of statesmen and military officials, including President Lincoln, in the hall of the House of Representatives. At the end of the war, she joined the lyceum lecture circuit and spoke on behalf of Radical Reconstruction measures and women’s rights, and against Mormonism, large corporations, and craft unions. In the early 1870s, Dickinson’s popularity as an orator waned, and her attempts to regain her popularity, first as a playwright and actress in the late 1870s and early 1880s and then as a political orator during the 1888 election, proved unsuccessful. She spent the last forty years of her life in obscurity. Giraud Chester, (New York, 1951); J. Matthew Gallman, (New York, 2006), 34-35; , 3:109; , 21:244-45; , 1:475-76. she spoke wonderfully well—and paid a high and most eloquent tribute to the valour of our Colored troops. I tell you, my Dear friend that we are rising—and we have only to acquire wealth—and education as to attain our rights at last. Please make my regards to Mr Dorsey¹⁰Thomas Dorsey.—Sarah¹¹Sarah Anne Dorsey Seville.—and Mary¹²Mary Louise Dorsey Harlan. William—and your brother Henry¹³ Henry Tobias (c. 1838-90) was the much younger brother of Louise Tobias Dorsey. Like his sister, he was born a free black in Philadelphia, and like his brother-in-law he was in the catering industry. 1870 U.S. Census, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia County, 142; 1880 U.S. Census, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia County, 125A; (online).
—and receive my best regards for yourself[.]

Yours Truly

FRED’K DOUGLASS

ALS: Frederick Douglass Collection, CtY.