Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) had been a NC freedom seeker who fled north in 1842 and became author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). During the Civil War (1863-65) she and her daughter Louisa (also a freedom seeker) were in Alexandria, VA, to provide emergency health care and establish the Jacobs Free School for newly freed refugees. Some of her letters about her experiences have survived. The Jacobs later did similar relief work in Savannah, GA.