The following account is extracted from the first biography of Harriet Tubman, published in 1869 and in revised form in 1886; it rightly calls her “The Moses of Her People.”  My description is borrowed from William Bennet’s book, “The book of virtues.”  She risked her life several times, to seek freedom for three hundred slaves, prior to the civil war of America.

On one of her journeys to the North, as she was leading a company of refugees, Harriet came, just as morning broke, to a town where a black man had lived whose house had been one of her stations on these pilgrims to freedom.  They reached the house, and leaving her party a little behind, Harriet went to the door, and gave the peculiar knock, which was her customary signal to her friends.  There was not the usual ready response, and she was obliged to repeat the signal several times.  After some time, a window was raised, and the head of a white man appeared, with the harsh question, “Who are you?” and “What do you want?”  Harriet asked after her friend, and was told that he had been obliged to leave for “harboring niggers.”

Here was an unforeseen trouble; day was breaking, and daylight was the enemy of the flying fugitives.  Their faithful leader stood one moment in the street, and in that moment she had flashed a message quicker than that of the telegraph to her unseen Protector (God), and the answer came as quickly in a suggestion to her of an almost forgotten place of refuge.  Outside of the town there was a little island in a swamp, where the grass grew tall and where no human being could be suspected of seeking a hiding place.  To this spot she conducted her party and entered the swamp.  She ordered them to lie down in the tall, wet grass, and here she prayed again, and waited for deliverance.  The poor creatures were all cold, and wet, and hungry, and Harriet did not dare to leave them to get supplies. For no doubt the man at whose house she had knocked, had given the alarm in the town; and officers might be on the watch for them.  The fugitives were truly in a miserable condition, but Harriet’s faith never wavered, her prayer still ascended, and she confidently expected help from some unknown quarter.

“It was after dusk when a man came slowly walking along the solid pathway on the edge of the swamp.  He was clad in the garb of a Quaker, and proved to be a “friend” in need and indeed.  He seemed to be talking to himself, but ears quickened by sharp practice caught the words he was saying, “My wagon stands in the barnyard of the next farm across the way.  The horse is in the stable; the harness hangs on a nail.”  And the man was gone.  Night fell, and Harriet stole forth to the place designated.  Not only a wagon, but a wagon well provisioned stood in the yard; and before many minutes the party were rescued from their wretched position, and were on their way rejoicing to the next town.  Harriet or any one in the party had never known the man who left them this well provisioned wagon.  In the next town, dwelt a Quaker whom Harriet knew, and he readily took charge of the horse and wagon, and no doubt returned them to their owner. How the good man who thus came to their rescue had received any intimation of their being in the neighborhood Harriet never knew.  But these sudden deliverances never seemed to strike her as at all strange or mysterious; her prayer was the prayer of faith, and she expected an answer.”