Why Frederick Douglass Wanted Black Men to Fight in the Civil War
He believed that, as soldiers, men of color could gain self-respect, self-defense skills and an undeniable justification for the rights of citizenship.
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He believed that, as soldiers, men of color could gain self-respect, self-defense skills and an undeniable justification for the rights of citizenship.
During the Civil War, Frederick Douglass used his stature as the most prominent African American social reformer, orator, writer and abolitionist to recruit men of his race to volunteer for the Union army. In his “Men of Color to Arms! Now or Never!” broadside, Douglass called on formerly enslaved men to “rise up in the dignity of our manhood, and show by our own right arms that we are worthy to be freemen.”
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As a 25-year-old single father, with a lot of life and energy and a 3-year-old son being left behind, he marched off to war at the call of his country. He would serve less than five months before succumbing to fever in the heat and swamps of a mosquito-infested part of Louisiana known as Carrollton. He died fighting to save the Union from the insurrectionists who formed the Confederacy.
Sadly, he lies today, with the exception of a small American flag, almost forgotten by the country he fought and died for, in the Jones family plot in an isolated cemetery on the corner of Maple Street and Lakewood Drive, here in Mashpee. His name is Ezra Jones, and he enlisted with the 38th Massachusetts Infantry in August 1862 during the height of the Civil War. He died of typhoid fever in a hospital at the Greenville Encampment, in the Carrollton area near New Orleans. The site included a barracks for troop housing, a cavalry camp of instruction and a general hospital. The camp of instruction serv
Editor s note:
This is the final column from Times-Union reporter Sandy Strickland, who retired in early December after 51 years at the Jacksonville Journal and Times-Union.
Dear Call Box: The Times-Union ran a story earlier this year about an art display in the windows of Lee & Cates. It made me curious about the building, which I’ve passed by for years.
N.P., Southside
Dear N.P.: There are only traces of red brick peeking through the weathered exterior of the Lee & Cates building at 905 W. Forsyth St. The black name letters have faded to an obscure gray.
While battling the ravages of time, the shuttered structure has survived a fire and vagrants who used it as a shelter. For almost a century, it’s been a familiar sight in LaVilla.
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