This book offers a moving narrative that offers a rare glimpse into the lives of African American men, women, and children on the cusp of freedom. It chronicles one of the first collective migrations of blacks from the South to the North during and after the Civil War. The book relates the history of a network forged between Worcester County, Massachusetts, and eastern North Carolina as a result of Worcester regiments taking control of northeastern North Carolina during the war. White soldiers from Worcester, a hotbed of abolitionism, protected refugee slaves, set up schools for them, and led them north at war's end.