Alexander Milton Ross (1832 1897) was a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad, known in that organization and among slaves as "The Birdman" for his preferred cover story as an ornithologist. A man of diverse interests and accomplishments, he was not only a bird expert but also a keen botanist and entomologist. An idealist, Ross manifested his beliefs in radical, anti-establishment activity and in polemical writing. As these Memoirs indicate, he was a committed and outspoken abolitionist but held a variety of other controversial views; he was a health fanatic, vegetarian, teetotaler, anti-vaccination and tobacco crusader, feminist, and eugenicist. The Appendix to this volume suggest he had an ego to match his accomplishments, for he includes praise by famous persons of his age (Gladstone, Garibaldi, Victor Hugo, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Horace Greeley, John Greenleaf Whittier) and rave reviews of his books.
