JPK Huson 1863
Brev. Brig. Gen'l
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2012
- Location
- Central Pennsylvania
When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a spy- in the worst way, too. It was somewhat of an obssession for awhile which did not go away until I was old enough to ascertain spies got themselves killed on a regular basis. I seem to remember not completely abandoning the project, thinking well, if I could be assured of being a really, really GOOD spy, the odds would at least be skewed in my favor. No idea where the ambition came from, although thinking about it, it may have evolved from one of the first books I got my hands on.
It was early elementery school, and the book was a bio on the life of Harriet Tubman. I swiped it from the 4th grade classroom, where Mom sometimes substituted. There was a series of bios on notable Americans written for children- this was one of them. When I finally got to sit in that classroom as a 4th grader, I chose a seat in the back of the room on purpose- it was right in front of that bookcase with this collection and I swiped and read every, single one, frequently during class. That darn book on Harriet started a life-long habit, which is re-reading favorite books endlessly, like visiting old, nice friends you're vastly familiar with. I still do it, still could probably recite pages of Harriet Tubman's juvenile novel I got my hands on gosh, 45 years ago. I'm a fan.
This is from the Central Intelligence Agency Website, seems a good place to borrow information on Harriet.
The Conductor Becomes a Spy
Harriet Tubman
Harriet Ross was born into slavery in Maryland in 1819 or 1820. She was whipped when she was a small child, and, when she was 15 years old, was struck on the head by a scale weight hurled at a slave she was helping escape. The injury produced a lifelong suffering from headaches and seizures. When she was 25 years old, she married John Tubman, a free African-American. About four years later, when her master died, she feared that she and her kin would be sold and scattered. So she began to think about escaping. Her husband declined to go with her, as did her brothers.
The courage and skill she used in her escape she would later use again as a spy for the Union.
Harriet Tubman fled to the North on the Underground Railroad, the network of abolitionists who helped slaves make their way to freedom. After freeing herself, she returned to Maryland, became a conductor on the railroad, and brought out members of her family. She made a score of dangerous trips, helping some 300 slaves reach the North. With each trip, she taught herself the ways of covert work behind enemy lines.
In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Dred Scott, a black man who had moved from a free state to a slave state, had no right to sue for his freedom because African-Americans could not be citizens; the court also ruled that Congress did not have the power to prohibit slavery in the territories. The decision emboldened slaveholders and put Tubman in even more jeopardy. But, in that same year, she slipped into Maryland and conducted her elderly parents to freedom.
Because of fugitive slave laws, escapees could find ultimate freedom only in Canada. Tubman went frequently to the main underground terminal in Canada, St. Catherines, Ontario. There she met John Brown, who told her of his plans for an armed raid on Harpers Ferry. She later said that if she had not been ill at the time, she would have joined in the raid.
Tubman went to war in May 1861, joining a Union force dispatched to her native Maryland, which was a hotbed of Southern sympathizers. There, she knew, her knowledge of the land would be helpful to Union troops. Later, she served in the Union’s Fort Monroe in Virginia. But it would be at her next duty post, in South Carolina, that she would become a full-fledged undercover operative.
In the spring of 1862, Tubman sailed from New York City to Beaufort, South Carolina, the operations center for Union forces that held the southeastern coast of South Carolina. She was sent to the region at the suggestion of Massachusetts Governor John Andrew, who believed that “she would be a valuable person to operate within the enemy’s lines in procuring information & scouts.”
The Union-held area was a magnet for slaves fleeing to freedom. Tubman helped to clothe and feed them while also setting up agent networks and conferring with Union officers, including Colonel James Montgomery. He made her his second-in-command for the night raid up the Combahee River that freed more than 750 plantation slaves.
After the war, Harriet Tubman lived on a small farm in Auburn, New York. Years before, William A. Seward, then an anti-slavery senator from New York—later to be Lincoln’s Secretary of State—had sold her the property and arranged for a mortgage. She continued to help exslaves and black veterans and supported the crusade for women’s suffrage. In 1869, two years after the death of John Tubman, she married Nelson Davis, an ex-slave whom she had met when he was a Union soldier.
Citing her work for the Union Army, especially the Combahee River raid, she petitioned for a pension. A member of Congress who had been a Union general backed her claim, noting “her services in the various capacities of nurse, scout, and spy.” But not until 1890, two years after the death of Davis, did she receive a pension of eight dollars a month. By then, she was in poverty, and neighbors were providing her with food. Nine years later, her monthly pension was raised to twenty dollars.
In 1903, she donated the farm to a church group on the condition that the home be maintained as a refuge for “aged and indigent colored people” and that she be allowed to live in the house for the rest of her life. In 1913, the woman known in the Union Army as “the General” died and was buried with military honors.
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