PREFACE.

The title I have given my black heroine, in this second edition of
her story, viz.: THE MOSES OF HER PEOPLE, may seem a little
ambitious, considering that this Moses was a woman, and that she
succeeded in piloting only three or four hundred slaves from the
land of bondage to the land of freedom.

But I only give her here the name by which she was familiarly
known, both at the North and the South, during the years of terror
of the Fugitive Slave Law, and during our last Civil War, in both
of which she took so prominent a part.

And though the results of her unexampled heroism were not to free
a whole nation of bond-men and bond-women, yet this object was as
much the desire of her heart, as it was of that of the great
leader of Israel. Her cry to the slave-holders, was ever like his
to Pharaoh, "Let my people go!" and not even he imperiled life and
limb more willingly, than did our courageous and self-sacrificing
friend.

Her name deserves to be handed down to posterity, side by side
with the names of Jeanne D'Arc, Grace Darling, and Florence
Nightingale, for not one of these women, noble and brave as they
were, has shown more courage, and power of endurance, in facing
danger and death to relieve human suffering, than this poor black
woman, whose story I am endeavoring in a most imperfect way to