Toward Union Lines

She was thought of as a privileged servant—no one would think of her as one who would desperately seek freedom. This was because of her physical appearance as well as her position in the hierarchy of plantation society. One day, without really giving it much thought, the urge for independence overcame her. She no longer cared about the welfare of the family she had worked for since she was a tiny child, because she had come to believe that owning another human being was an unnatural act in the sight of God.

Tension was high on the plantation—the war was not going well for the South. She collected her few belongings, including a chicken she had been allowed to keep for eggs, and carrying her baby with her, left the only home she had ever known without looking back.