Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
204
LIFE OF FREDERICK: DOUGLASS.
Mass., October 21, 1844, and when five years of
age entered the public schools of Rochester.
Five years later he began folding and delivering
his father's papers to city subscribers, leaving
school one day in each week for that purpose.
The breaking out of the Civil War found him
engaged in farming. When only nineteen years
of age, February 9, 1863, he enlisted in the 54th
Massachusetts Infantry, being the first negro in
the state of New York to enlist. Having served
thirteen months in Company F of this regiment,
he was transferred and promoted as first sergeant
of Company I, 5th Massachusetts cavalry, and remained
with that command until near the close
of the war.
He was married at Rochester, September 21,
1866, and in April of the following year was
appointed to a clerkship in the war department.
Up to this time there had been only one other
appointment of a negro to a clerkship under the
government of the United States. Assigned to
duty with General O. O. Howard, commissioner
of the Freedmen's Bureau, he served as confidential
clerk to the commissioner and as clerk in the
education division of the bureau. In 1869 he
was appointed to a clerkship in the treasury department.
Sometime prior to this he received, at
the hands of Mrs. Lincoln, the cane commonly
used by President Lincoln in his daily walks,