Title: Beneath the Cotton Sky In the heart of Georgia, 1864, a whisper ran through the cotton fields like a breeze stirring the soil: Freedom is coming. Twelve-year-old Ella Mae had never known anything but the endless stretch of white cotton and the harsh crack of overseer lashes. Her mother, Missy, often sang low spirituals while they worked not just for comfort, but as messages, hidden maps of hope. Ella didn’t understand them at first, but now, she was beginning to listen closely. One night, Missy gathered a small group in the slave quarters. A quiet man named Josiah, who walked with a limp and spoke rarely, unfurled a tattered paper a map leading to the Union lines. “Tomorrow night,” he whispered, “we go north.” Ella's heart raced. Fear pulsed through her chest, but so did something else the spark of possibility. They moved under the veil of darkness, guided by the North Star and the songs Ella now knew by heart: “Follow the drinking gourd…” They crept past patrols, slept in hollowed tree trunks, and accepted food from brave allies free Black farmers and abolitionist Quakers. Along the way, Ella saw her mother’s resilience, Josiah’s silent courage, and the burning determination in her own chest to make it. After two grueling weeks, they crossed into Tennessee and stumbled upon a Union encampment. Soldiers in blue coats welcomed them, offering water and warmth. Ella looked at the sky no longer just a canopy of oppression, but now a canvas of freedom. She reached for her mother’s hand. “We made it,” she whispered. And beneath that vast cotton sky, Ella Mae knew this was just the beginning of her story.