During the 1850s and 1860s more than 100,000 people escaped slavery in the American South by following the Underground Railroad, a complex network of secret routes and safe houses. This inexpensive compilation of firsthand accounts offers authentic insights into the Civil War era and African-American history with compelling narratives by Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and lesser-known refugees.
Thirty selections include the story of Eliza Harris, "The Slave Woman Who Crossed the Ohio River on the Drifting Ice with Her Child in Her Arms," whose experience inspired a memorable scene in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Other accounts include that of Henry "Box" Brown, who hid in a crate mailed to Philadelphia abolitionists; excerpts from Harriet Jacobs's 1861 narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl; and the remarkable flight of William and Ellen Craft, "Female Slave in Male Attire, Fleeing as a Planter, with Her Husband as Her Body Servant."

An English professor at the City University of New York's Kingsborough College, Bob Blaisdell is the editor of numerous Dover Thrift Editions, including New York: The Big Apple Quote Book and Great Speeches by Mark Twain. Christine Rudisel is Assistant Professor of English at the City University of New York's Kingsborough College.