Harriet Tubman

by Rosemary Sadlier

  Harriet preferred to be outdoors, so she was pleased to work initially with the First and Second Carolina Regiments as a nurse, then as a spy and a scout. By 1863 Harriet had organized what would be called today an intelligence service, choosing former slaves who knew the terrain to identify food stores or assist in piloting the rivers in preparation for raids. Raids tried to force surrenders from the opposition, gain recruits or raw materials and food, or to destroy property. The information gathered by Harriet made the raids of the Union forces successful. When asked by Colonel Montgomery to see what she could do behind Confederate lines, since the Union still controlled the Sea Islands, Harriet was able to do so. She created a network out of the black men in the area that she could train and trust to see what information they could find out about the activities of the other side, including the ammunition and food stores of the Confederates. This spy ring, of which she was also an active part, successfully managed to find the information that led to a major victory.

  One of the most famous raids was on the Combahee River. The black scouts knew where the mine traps were set in the river and successfully avoided them. Former enslaved field hands piloted gunboats down the river or burned crops and buildings according to Harriet’s instructions. Slaves fled from the plantations and were so elated that Harriet tried to calm them through song. Over 750 slaves were taken on board and a Wisconsin journalist credited Harriet as being the one who led the raid, planned the strategy, and carried it out. This made Harriet Tubman the first woman to lead a military assault in American history.

  It is likely that the Gullah who were brought into the army had Tubman’s guidance to prepare them:

  Col. Montgomery and his gallant band of 800 black soldiers, under the guidance of a black woman, dashed in to the enemies’ country ... destroying millions of dollars worth of commissary stores, cotton and lordly dwellings, and striking terror to the heart of rebeldom, brought off near 800 slaves and thousands of dollars worth of property.

  — The Boston Commonwealth, July 1863

  The military action planned by Tubman on the Combahee River destroyed identified mines and torpedoes in the river, identified Confederate supplies (cotton, rice, potatoes, corn, and farm animals) and disrupted the ability of the Confederates to be replenished. Railroads, bridges, and plantations were destroyed in the wake of this battle. Harriet Tubman not only selected, trained, recruited, and roused the men in preparation for the battle, she also helped to calm the hundreds of enslaved Africans from Confederate-controlled plantations through singing and engaging them in song to calm them down afterwards. And they needed calming. Hundreds of enslaved Africans heard the boat whistle and knew it meant that the gun boats had succeeded in defending them from the Confederate Army. They ran out of their homes, carrying pots of rice, with children hanging around the necks of their parents still digging into the food as they were being carried. Tubman remarked on how many twins she saw and just what a sight it was. So the singing was to calm them down as many of them boarded the boats, paying no mind to their former overseers who were really unable to stop them from leaving. As Tubman indicated:

  I nebber see such a sight. We laughed, an’ laughed, an’ laughed. Here you’d see a woman wid a pail on her head, rice a smokin’ in it jus’ as she’d taken it from de fire, young one hangin’ on behind, one han’ roun’ her forehead to hold on, t’other han’ diggin’ into de rice-pot, eatin’ wid all its might; hold of her dress two or three more; down her back a bag wid a pig in it. One woman brought two pigs, a white one an’ a black one; we took ’em all on board; named de white pig Beauregard, and de black pig Jeff Davis. Sometimes de women would come wid twins hangin’ roun’ der necks; ‘pears like I nebber see so many twins in my life; bags on der shoulders, baskets on der heads, and young ones taggin’ behin’, all loaded; pigs squealin’, chickens screamin’, young ones squallin …

  Because of the way in which smaller boats were sent out to bring newly freed people on board it was a slow process and some were fearful that the smaller boats would not return to pick them up. So it was the excitement of the news, the challenges of loading, and the relief of the end of the battle that caused people to be so emotional.

  According to General Saxton, in his report on the Combahee Raid to the Secretary of War Stanton, “This is the only military command in American history wherein a woman, black or white, led the raid and under whose inspiration it was originated and conducted.”

  Harriet continued her service to the Union forces by cooking, doing laundry, and carrying dispatches for units. She served Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, of the black Fifty-Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts, his last meal prior to the Fort Wagner battle in Charleston Harbour, captured in the 1990 film Glory. Harriet described this battle, which ended with the death of 1,500 black troops that she helped to bury, as follows:

  Then we saw de lightening, and that was de guns; and then we heard de thunder, and that was de big guns; and then we heard de rain falling, and that was de drops of blood falling; and when we came to get in de crops, it was dead men that we reaped.

  Harriet requested a leave of absence in the spring of 1864 and returned to Auburn to rest. At this time she was likely interviewed by Sarah Bradford who produced the closest thing we have to an autobiography of Harriet Tubman. Sarah, a teacher in the Auburn area, befriended Tubman and saw this effort as a means of allowing Tubman to acquire some funds. The first Bradford book, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman, published in 1869, brought in about $1,000 to help address Tubman’s financial distress. The second publication, Harriet, the Moses of her People, released in 1886, was also intended to address Tubman’s need for funds.

  By the summer of 1864 Harriet was again well enough to travel to Boston, meeting the sixty-seven-year-old Sojourner Truth. Sojourner was an outspoken speaker on women’s rights, abolition, and religion. Harriet declined an invitation to join Sojourner at a meeting with President Lincoln because she felt he had done little to free the slaves. Harriet and other abolitionist and black leaders had been shocked when President Abraham Lincoln denied that the goal of the Civil War was to end slavery, and Lincoln had declined to accept blacks in the Union Army until 1863. Volunteers of African descent were allowed to enlist only after pressure from abolitionists and military strategists, and well after the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation giving freedom to slaves in states, which were still embroiled in Civil War conflicts effective January 1, 1863. Harriet did not feel that Lincoln deserved praise for his treatment of people of African descent, feeling that John Brown had done more.

  Always ready to serve, Harriet found herself back to tending to wounded soldiers. By 1865, she was acting as the matron of the Fortress Monroe Colored Hospital in Virginia. Deeply dedicated to alleviating suffering, she helped to fundraise for the education of children and freed adults. She also had the care of her parents to deal with, and by 1868 the home that she had was expanded to become the Home for Aged and Indigent Colored People.

  Also later in 1865, Harriet agreed to assist Martin Delany in recruiting and training a black military unit drawn from the population of the south. The surrender of General Robert E. Lee, general-in-chief of the Confederate Army, made this unnecessary. But Harriet was willing to work in the government hospital in Fort Munroe, Virginia. Most of the sick had dysentery, severe and painful diarrhea, and with a remedy Harriet had learned from her family or other slaves, they recovered in a day. The herbal medicine she used was derived from roots of the pond lily and wild geranium. Her expertise was needed in Fernadina, Florida, where she next worked. She was appointed “matron” (superintendent) of this hospital after complaining about the conditions there. Harriet, for all her value to the government, still had not received anything more than the original $200 given to her in 1861.

  Harriet had a long connection to sickness and healing. As a child, she had become seriously ill while tending swamp traps. It was only her mother’s knowledge of herbal medicine and her constant care which helped Harri
et pull through. Later, when Harriet was hit in the head with a two-pound weight, it was her mother again who cared for her. Slaves were not the beneficiaries of the recent medical techniques, and they managed by using remedies, techniques and knowledge brought from Africa. Some slaves may also have had contact with First Nations people who could have taught them about the healing properties of North American plants. Harriet taught her descendants about some of the healing plants and procedures that were successful in her experience. In one instance, a relative of Harriet’s had her thumb almost severed. Harriet immediately went into the barn and got some cobwebs, which she used to wrap around the injury, and she covered it with a handkerchief. In three days, Harriet repeated this procedure. A scar was never seen at the site of the injured thumb and it worked!

  Harriet is known to have prepared a poultice out of poke salad and dandelion greens and that was placed on feet to bring down swelling. For a cold, she would prepare a poultice of onions and camphorated oil which would be placed on the chest and covered with flannel. If the onion poultice was brown in the morning, that meant that the fever was broken. For warts, Harriet would use milkweed, break it open and put the milk on the problem area. The treated individual could not look at where the empty pod was thrown. This process was repeated two or three times until the wart disappeared.

  Some members of her family felt that she could be credited with discovering penicillin.

  If Harriet saw a mould form on the top of the foods that the family had canned in the fall season, she would remove the mould, place it in another jar, add fresh lemon juice, honey and brandy (or bourbon), and shake it. If you got a cold, then you would get a teaspoon full of this mixture. She would say, “This is good for colds.”

  — Marilene Wilkins, a Tubman descendant.

  Harriet Tubman, by necessity, had to be resourceful. It was not uncommon for African Americans to use natural herbs and to have knowledge of their powers since they were barred from mainstream healthcare. Our common usage of Aspirin today is connected to the discovery of the effects of willow bark and leaves. The salicin that is contained in this plant reduces discomfort. Pharmaceutical drugs have a connection to herbal remedies. During enslavement, “professional” doctors would not be called for ailing black people, so through necessity, options to promote healing or to lessen painful symptoms were sought out. These experiences would be magnified during Tubman’s time working as a nurse — there had never been a time when she was formally instructed on the care, assessment, and treatment of the soldiers brought before her. She was not a trained nurse, but nevertheless she was requested to carry out these healing functions and became the matron of the coloured hospital. So, despite her lack of formal training, her practical experience learned from her mother and other caregivers in her community equipped her to help heal sick and wounded people.

  10

  Successful Activism

  Certainly the military was pleased with the efforts that Harriet Tubman had displayed. Her skillful teaching so that local women could learn a new trade in order to become self-sufficient; her nursing to keep the soldiers at their best and readiest; her recruitment of Confederate-owned enslaved Africans; her scouting so that not only key areas were destroyed, but also good use made of their stores of supplies. Then, in 1865, she was appointed to deal with some problems that arose in Washington, D.C. hospitals. At Fort Monroe, Virginia, she was appointed matron of the hospital. Her contribution was without a doubt useful and selfless. Harriet was so concerned about how others were feeling that she even gave up her stipend lest others feel she was being given special treatment. But it was not special treatment — she gave up her regular rations that she was entitled to as a soldier to avert any hostile or jealous feelings from others. This was what led her to bake pies and make ginger beer in the evenings so that these items could be sold by others while she continued to work on behalf of the government.

  However, Harriet did accept the offer of good rates on the trains as supported in this letter from the Charles Wood collection:

  From General Hunter, Headq’rs Dept’t of the South, Hilton Head, Port Royal, S.C.

  Feb. 19, 1863

  Pass the bearer, Harriet Tubman, to Beaufort, and back to this place, and wherever she wishes to go, and give her passage at all times on all Government transports. Harriet was sent to me from Boston, by Gov. Andrew, of Mass., and is a valuable woman. She has permission, as a warrant of the Government, to purchase such provisions from the commissary as she may need.

  Harriet Tubman wanted to see her family, so with her government pass entitling her to pay half fare on the train, she retired from the hospital and headed for Auburn. Even though she had paid for a seat, her presence offended some of the other paying passengers. Her credibility was doubted — how could a black person have a government pass? The ticket taker and several men insulted Harriet, grabbed her, and threw her into the baggage compartment, badly hurting her arm. Harriet had survived the war only to receive her war injury on her way home. Her injury was to her person but also to her income, and considering that she had been a commander of about eight men in preparation for and during the battle on the Combahee, that she was fired upon and that she then performed more typical women’s work on top of that, she was entitled to a reasonable bit of compensation and respect. However, unknown to Harriet, at about the same time that she was being abused, William Lloyd Garrison, a white anti-slavery worker, was receiving $30,000 for his abolition work. Clearly, despite the 13th Amendment freeing the slaves in Union territory, the treatment and experience of blacks was still not fair or equitable.

  Harriet Tubman’s derelict Auburn, New York, home, circa 1947.

  Photograph by Ruth Putter.

  In one example that was close to Harriet, her estranged husband, John, had an argument in 1867 with a white man named Rob Vincent in Dorchester County over some ashes. Rob threatened to kill John, and when the two happened to meet later in the day, Rob stopped his wagon, turned, and deliberately fired at and killed John before driving off. Two witnesses saw what occurred, one being John Tubman’s thirteen-year-old son. Rob was tried and found not guilty.

  After her arrival in Auburn, Harriet tried to raise money for two freedmen’s schools in North Carolina, and asked wealthy supporters for donations, gave passionate presentations at meetings, and gave parties in order to help. To support herself, Harriet worked as a nurse, cooked, took care of children, raised chickens, grew vegetables for sale, and relied on the people of Auburn for ad hoc supplies. She would not have been in this position if she had fewer people living with her to care for. Her reputation was such that after the war, the injured, the impoverished, and the elderly, would show up at her home looking for assistance. Not willing to turn them away, she welcomed them, expanded her vegetable garden, and tried harder to seek donations from the wealthier class in town. She cared for up to twenty people, including her parents, her brother William Henry, Mary Ann’s son Harkless Bowley, and a grand-niece Eva Stewart.

  Had Harriet received what she was entitled to for her work with the government, which she estimated to be $18,000 (blacks routinely were paid half of what whites would expect to receive), plus an additional amount for recruiting, she would have lived much more comfortably. Later, Harriet did receive some money from the sale of the Bradford book.

  Harriet was surprised to meet Nelson Davis at her door one day. He claimed to have met Harriet in 1864 while he was a member of the 8th Coloured Infantry. He greatly admired Harriet, and though he was twenty years younger than Harriet and healthy looking, Nelson was unable to work because he had contracted tuberculosis. Harriet had a commitment to help her people and may have been flattered by his admiration or felt a need to protect him because he was sick. Maybe the two just fell in love. In any event, they were wed in Central Church, Auburn, on March 18, 1869. They lived together until Nelson finally succumbed to his tuberculosis and died in 1888.

  Harriet Tubman received a letter from her old friend, Frederick D
ouglass, dated August 28, 1868. In this letter he acknowledges the lifelong nature of her sacrifice and work:

  The difference between us is very marked. Most that I have done and suffered in the service of our cause has been in public, and I have received much encouragement at every step of the way. You, on the other hand, have labored in a private way. I have wrought in the day — you the night. I have had the applause of the crowd and the satisfaction of being approved by the multitude, while the most that you have done has been witnessed by a few trembling, scared, and foot-sore bondmen and women, whom you have led out of the house of bondage, and whose heartfelt “God bless you” has been your only reward. The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witness of your devotion to freedom.

  Harriet was able to purchase another property, 26 acres in 1896, adjacent to her Auburn home from the donations received from Auburn residents and from some of the proceeds of the Bradford book. It had two buildings already erected on it, was valued at $6,000, and had a mortgage of $1,700. Initially, Harriet had wanted to clear the property of debt and to open a home for girls, but as time passed, she hoped to be able to leave the property as a home for the aged. Harriet later deeded the property to the AME Zion Church of Auburn for this purpose. The Harriet Tubman Home for Aged and Indigent Colored People was incorporated in 1903 and formally opened in 1908. Harriet herself lived there for the last two years of her life. Currently, the AME Zion Church is still hoping to keep Harriet’s dream of a home for the aged and a meeting place for the young alive through public support.

  In 1888, Congress passed an act giving the widows of Civil War veterans a pension of $8 a month. Harriet, now a widow, resubmitted her petition with the support of Secretary of State William Seward, Colonel T. W. Higginson, and General Rufus for payment for her three years of service as a nurse, cook, and scout commander, and received $20 per month, but she was still denied a full military pension of her own. Even to this day she remains the only woman and the only black woman to have planned and carried out an armed military action against enemy forces. Mr. F.B. Sanborn, secretary of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities and supporter of John Brown said, “… she has accomplished her purposes with a coolness, foresight, patience and wisdom, which in a white man would have raised him to the highest pitch of reputation.”