Dictionary of American Biography

In May 1835 she published, in two volumes, Journal of a Residence in America, which was a record of her tour, and freely though goodnaturedly she criticized the various American customs. The young republic was touchy, however, and for a time she was roundly abused. The winter of 1838-39 she spent with her husband on his Georgia plantation where for the first time she saw the inside workings of slavery and realized the source of her husband’s income. She was deeply revolted and again kept a journal, but she refused to publish it until the Civil War, when she issued it to influence British opinion (Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, 1863). Her visit to Georgia deepened the gap which tastes and temperament had already made between her and her husband….In 1848 her husband sued for divorce, alleging abandonment. The case was long a famous one, especially as she was defended by Rufus Choate. The divorce was granted in 1849, after Fanny had returned to America and discovered a way to employ her talents successfully without appearing on stage. She gave public readings from Shakespeare, and so great was the demand to hear them, in England as well as America, that she was able to purchase a cottage in her beloved Lenox, in the Berkshire Hills, where she made her summer home for the next few years.

Physically, Douglass was a commanding person, over six feet in height, with brown skin, frizzly hair, leonine head, strong constitution, and a fine voice. Persons who had heard him on the platform began to doubt his story. They questioned if this man who spoke good English and bore himself with independent self-assertion could ever have been a slave. Thereupon he wrote his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass which Wendell Phillips advised him to burn. It was a daring recital of facts and Phillips feared that it might lead to his reenslavement. Douglass published the little book in 1845, however, and then, to avoid possible consequences, visited Great Britain and Ireland. Here he remained two years, meeting nearly all of the English Liberals. For the first time in his life he was treated as a man and an equal. The resultant effect upon his character was tremendous. He began to conceive emancipation not simply as physical freedom; but as social equality and economic and spiritual opportunity.

At Washington in 1861, he soon won the high regard of Lincoln, becoming the almoner of federal patronage in his state and helping to prepare a bill to carry out Lincoln’s plan of gradual emancipation in Delaware. The project failed, but Fisher’s efforts so impressed Lincoln that, on the abolition of the old courts and the creation of a supreme court for the District of Columbia, he appointed Fisher as one of the four justices, on Mar. 11, 1863, eight days after his congressional term had expired. Fisher is said to have displayed great ability on the bench and was praised especially for his conduct, in January 1867, of the first trial of John H. Surratt for participation in Lincoln’s assassination. In May 1870 he was appointed by President Grant as United States attorney for the District of Columbia, but five years later he returned to Delaware. He was recalled to public life by President Benjamin Harrison in June 1889 to serve as first auditor of the treasury, a position which he held until the change of administration in 1893. The last years of his life he devoted to reading and literary pursuits, dying after a brief illness at Washington.

He was born a slave, at New Market, Kent County, Md., escaped from bondage in 1824, and subsequently made his way to New York, where he entered school in 1826. He was one of the persons of African blood on account of whose matriculation a mob broke up the academy at Canaan, N.H., in 1835. His education was continued, however, under Beriah Green at Oneida Institute, Whitestown, N.Y. The intelligent and versatile Presbyterian minister, Rev. Theodore S. Wright of New York, with whom Garnet established an acquaintance, probably became the dominant influence in directing him to the gospel ministry. After finishing his education, he divided his time between preaching and abolition agitation in the employ of the American Anti-Slavery Society. While he did not neglect the ministry, he viewed the anti-slavery platform as his important post of duty. He easily took rank among the foremost negro Abolitionists, and his fame spread throughout the country.

During the presidency of her husband, Mrs. Lincoln, in what Stoddard called her “somewhat authoritative” way, gave special attention to levees and other social affairs. A Southern lady in the White House, she was subjected to criticism, much of which was gossip and malicious slander; certainly the imputations of disloyalty were unfounded. Even the touches of social gayety with which she relieved the strain of wartime anxiety were criticized as inappropriate. She suffered during the war by reason of divisions in her own family (her sister’s husband, Ben. H. Helm, being a Confederate general), and by the crushing bereavement of her son Willie’s death.

In March of the following year [1863], she was playing in The Seven Sisters at Wood’s Theatre in Louisville. At a certain point in the performance she was called on to drink a toast and was urged by certain Southern sympathizers to toast the Southern cause. Making this public avowal of sympathy on the advice of the provost-marshal, she was dismissed from the theatre. She then took an oath of allegiance to the Federal government and was commissioned as secret agent. A supposed rebel, she was subsequently expelled from Nashville, with instructions to penetrate as far South as possible, and to collect all the military information she could, but under no condition to carry notes or plans. Unfortunately, her opportunities to obtain military maps were so great that she violated her instructions. Her uneasy knowledge of the possession of these materials caused her to make an incriminating effort to escape when detained not far from Bragg’s headquarters at Tullahoma, Tenn. The papers being discovered, she was tried by a military court and sentenced to be hanged in ten days. Anxiety over her position, added to the strain of her hard journeys, brought on a temporary physical collapse. Removed from the military jail to more comfortable quarters at Shelbyville, Tenn., she was left behind when the Confederates hastily retreated from that place in June 1863. She was able to give the advancing army of Rosecrans much valuable information, but had become so well-known that further spying was impossible.

After Georgia had withdrawn from the union, however, Wofford loyally offered his services to his state, and was commissioned colonel of the 18th Georgia Regiment. After brief service in North Carolina, he was attached to Hood’s brigade and took part in the campaigns around Richmond in 1862. After Hood’s promotion Wofford commanded the brigade at Second Manassas (Bull Run), and South Mountain, and Sharpsburg, and was commended by Hood for “gallant conduct” and “conspicuous bravery.” He served under Brig-Gen. Thomas R. R. Cobb and, after Cobb’s death at Fredericksburg, was promoted, Jan. 19, 1863, to the rank of brigadier-general. He led the brigade at Chancellorsville and rendered valuable service under Longstreet at Gettysburg. Against the wishes of Lee, who considered him one of the best brigadier-generals in the division, Wofford was sent with Longstreet to East Tennessee, where he led the unsuccessful assault on Knoxville. He was then attached to Kershaw’s division, and saw service in the desperate campaigns of 1864 around Richmond and Petersburg, and in the Shenandoah Valley. Twice…he was wounded…. He surrendered to Gen. H. M. Judah at Resaca, Ga., on May 2, 1865.

The war being over, Wofford devoted his energy and means to the care of the starving and the economic, industrial and educational rehabilitation of his devastated section of the state. Elected to Congress in 1865, he was refused his seat by the Radical Republicans, but through the aid of Judge Kelly of Pennsylvania obtained much-needed food and supplies for his district.