In the humid summer of 1863, in a small patch of land on the outskirts of Vicksburg, Mississippi, twelve-year-old Josiah clutched a worn book to his chest. The book, Pilgrim’s Progress, had been passed to him by Old Caleb, a freedman who once walked from Georgia to Mississippi spreading news of Lincoln’s proclamation like gospel. Josiah was born into slavery on the Beauchamp plantation. His mother, Lila, worked in the kitchen, and his father was sold before Josiah could remember his face. But Josiah remembered words—whispers of freedom from the older men who worked the fields, the songs sung low at night, the secret messages embedded in spirituals. “Steal away... steal away to Jesus,” they’d sing, and Josiah understood, even if the overseer did not. When news came that the Union army was moving closer, tensions on the plantation swelled. Some enslaved people fled into the woods, some stayed, afraid of being caught. Josiah, inspired by Caleb’s stories and his mother’s fierce quiet strength, decided he would do more than wait. One evening, under the glow of a low moon, Josiah followed the stars north. He carried only the book, a pouch of cornbread, and the memory of his mother’s last words: “Be free. Live for those who couldn’t.” For days he trudged through swamps, evaded patrols, and eventually stumbled upon a Union encampment near the Mississippi River. Frail, dirty, and too small to be a soldier, Josiah became a camp aide—but more than that, he became a student. Black soldiers, many recently freed themselves, taught him to read, write, and speak of freedom as both fact and future. Years later, Josiah would return to Mississippi—not as a boy in bondage, but as a teacher. In a one-room schoolhouse built by calloused hands and hope, he passed down Pilgrim’s Progress, not just as literature but as metaphor. His story, like many others, became a quiet legacy—one whisper among the chorus of jubilee that changed a nation.