Behind the Scenes : or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House (The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-century Black Women Writers)

This fascinating autobiography describes one woman's life as a slave and subsequently her four years in Lincoln's White House during the Civil War. Through the eyes of this black woman, a seamstress and dressmaker who was only a few years removed from being a `slave for life', we see historical figures and events ranging from the Lincolns in their private chambers to the return to Richmond after the fall of the Confederate capital.