Such was Alexander Ross before he was knighted by several kings for his scientific discoveries and honored by the French Academy. Wherever he went in Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama or Mississippi, he talked of birds and plants. Equipped with shotgun and preservatives, he roamed nonchalantly into field and wood. The slave disappearances were never related to him. Along the Underground Railroad they called him “the Birdman.” Through him, Jeb, the boy Frederick had left behind in Baltimore, got away to freedom. And there were others along the Eastern Shore to whom Frederick had said, “I’ll not be forgetting!” Douglass sent Alexander Ross back along the way he had come and made good his promises. * * * * * Cotton and slavery--by 1854 the two words became synonymous. The Cotton Empire was straining its borders. More land was needed for the “silver fleece,” and slaves must break the land and plant the seed and pick the delicate soft pods. There was no other way. Then a shrewd bidder for the presidency made an offer to the South--western territory for their votes--and they sprang at the bribe. Passage of the Nebraska Bill stacked the ammunition for civil war dangerously high. This scrapping of the Missouri Compromise struck antislavery men all in a heap. The line against slavery had been so clear--no slaves above the line. It should have run to the Pacific, stretching west with the course of empire. But now, by means of the clever wording of the Nebraska (Territory) Bill--“to leave the people ... free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way”--a vast tract embracing upward of four hundred thousand square miles was being thrown open to slavery. Stephen Douglas drove the Bill through Congress. It was his moment of triumph. The North reacted. Harriet Beecher Stowe led eleven hundred women marching through the streets in protest. Great mass meetings assembled. They hanged Stephen Douglas in effigy. State legislatures met in special sessions and sent manifests to Congress. William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, Wendell Phillips, Henry Highland Garnet, and Henry Ward Beecher raised their voices like mighty trumpets; they filled the air with oratory. * * * * * The five sons of John Brown set out for Kansas.