At the same time, racist Copperheads nearly burned down Philadelphia’s Union League, a Republican institution with many anti-slavery members. Copperheads were Southern sympathizers who did not appreciate the league’s role in raising funds to organize and train black troops in the city. One prominent Union League member was Chelten Hills resident Jay Cooke, a multimillionaire who sold so many bonds to finance the Union war machine that he became known as “the financier of the Civil War.” Another member was Edward M. Davis, son-in-law of the famed Quaker abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Lucretia Mott, whose family leased the land to the federal government to erect Camp William Penn. The petite Mott often spoke to the troops at the camp while standing on a drumhead, and she baked cakes and pies for the men.

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When Frederick Douglass entered the grounds of Camp William Penn on the afternoon of Saturday, July 18, 1863, he was greeted by a disturbing sight. As the legendary black leader prepared to speak, he saw a number of black recruits standing atop barrels with rails over their shoulders as punishment for various military infractions. Douglass was clearly angry when he began to address the troops of the 3rd Regiment because he had learned that some of the men–many bearing the scars of slavery–were giving their white officers plenty of trouble. One disgusted officer condemned the ability of the black recruits to become good soldiers.

“The fortunes of the whole race for generations to come are bound up in the success or failure of the 3rd Regiment of colored troops from the North,” Douglass told the troops. “You are a spectacle for men and angels. You are in a manner to answer the question, can the black man be a soldier?” His confident voice rising, Douglass continued, “That we can now make soldiers of these men, there can be no doubt!”

The imposing Douglass–standing more than six feet tall and weighing about 200 pounds–knew all too well how much the destiny of blacks in America rested on the shoulders of newly enlisted black soldiers. That very evening, one of Douglass’ own sons was putting his military training to good use by taking part in the bloody assault on Fort Wagner in South Carolina as a member of the 54th Massachusetts. The 54th would be repelled and suffer terrible casualties, but the regiment proved conclusively that blacks were brave warriors.

Douglass knew that skeptical local antagonists would still closely scrutinize events at Camp William Penn. For that reason, the rebellious attitude of some of the black soldiers in camp worried him greatly. Although he realized that some of their defiant actions were at least partially justified due to abuse by whites at the camp, he also knew that there was much at stake for the soldiers and the local abolitionists who had stuck their necks out for them. Douglass would temporarily stop recruiting due to the abuses and meet with President Lincoln about the problem, but he wanted the new black soldiers to look at the larger picture while fighting in a constructive way for their human rights. Right in the Chelten Hills community where they were pre-paring for war, abolitionists such as Mott, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, William Lloyd Garrison and others were helping to lay the groundwork that would lead to the expanded emancipation of black Americans.

Standing near the camp’s white commander, Louis Wagner, Douglass replied to white pessimism about the black troops. His African brethren were ready and willing to fight and die for their emancipation, he insisted. But Douglass also said that the black recruits should not defy government authority. Addressing the black troops, he told them, “It is for you to justify that reply, which I certainly believe you will do, but in order to [do] this you will have to prove that you cannot only parade and drill, but equal the white soldiers in deportment, in neatness of person, in the brightness of your arms, in orderly deportment, and scrupulous obedience to orders.”

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