Reach for the stars to change the world…

I recently watched the motion picture, Harriet. The movie was excellent. The writing, actors, and settings are some of the best I’ve seen as far as historical movies go. While I watched this emotional story unfold, I questioned what was real and what was contrived by Hollywood for my viewing pleasure. So, let’s take a look at this remarkable woman’s life.

The truth about Harriet Tubman is as amazing as the movie portrays.

Born sometime between 1820 and 1825 in Dorchester County Maryland, Araminta Harriet Ross (nicknamed Minty) had a clear sense of justice from a young age. Maybe because she carried scars from a whipping she received when she was five or six years old. Or maybe because of the daily violence she was subjected to on the plantation where she lived. Whatever the reason, the most severe injury Harriet received in slavery, happened while she was defending a fellow slave who had left the fields without permission. An overseer was threatening the man and threw a two-pound weight at him. Harriet moved in front of the slave and consequently the weight struck her in the head. For the remainder of her life, Tubman suffered severe headaches, bouts of narcolepsy, and vivid dreams she called visions from God.
 

Harriet Tubman

Stipulations in the will of the man who owned Harriet and her family stated that her family should have been freed after his death, but his son and wife chose not to carry out his wishes. Though Harriet’s father had been freed before their owner’s death.

Fear of being sold further south, Harriet escaped without a plan and then made the trip almost solely on foot from Maryland to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania completely alone. Her main focus…follow the North star. She crossed into the free state of Pennsylvania with liberation and reverence and later recollected: “When I found I had crossed that line, I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything; the sun came like gold through the trees, and over the fields, and I felt like I was in Heaven.” (Harriet Tubman, Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman By Sarah Hopkins Bradford.)

Harriet couldn’t live with the thought of her family still in bondage, so she made her first trip back into slave country about a year after her escape. It’s estimated she made a total of 19 trips and led many others to their freedom in the North. She was never caught and stated, “I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say — I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.” (Harriet Tubman at a suffrage convention, NY, 1896.)

The beginning of the Civil War gave Harriet another means to rescue more people. She first worked as a cook, then a nurse, then she began to scout and eventually spy for the Union. Harriet Tubman was the first woman—black or white—to lead an armed expedition in the war. The South Carolina, Combahee River Raid, liberated more than 750 people.
 

Harriet, her 2nd husband and family

                       
Harriet Tubman continued to serve others even after the war. She and her second husband, Nelson Davis (who was at least twenty years her younger) lived on a small farm in Auburn, NY where they ran a brick-making business and cared for Harriet’s family and aging former slaves.
 

Harriet Tubman

At the age of approximately 93, Harriet passed away from complications due to pneumonia. She was buried with full military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn, New York.
 

Harriet Tubman was a woman from whom we can all learn.

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Multi-award-winning author, Michele K. Morris’s love for historical fiction began

when she first read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House book series. She grew up riding horses and spending her free time in the woods of mid-Michigan. Michele now lives with her six children, three in-loves and ten grandchildren in the great Sunshine State. Michele loves to hear from readers on Facebook, Twitter, and here through the group blog, Heroes, Heroines, and History at HHHistory.com.

Michele is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency.

Harriet Tubman and William Henry Seward (and a free book event)

by Kathleen L. Maher

Are you "geeking out" about the new Harriet Tubman movie like me? If so, I thought you might enjoy reading about this amazing lady's not-commonly-known relationship with Lincoln's Secretary of State. 

First, some trivia about William H. Seward, a historical figure and native New Yorker whom I never get tired of studying.

• New York State Senator 1830-34
• New York Governor 1839-42
• US Senator for NY 1849-61 
• Considered early favorite Republican for president in 1860  
• Secretary of State 1861-1869 for Lincoln and Johnson
• Attacked and seriously wounded by Lewis Powell during Lincoln's assassination plot
• purchased Alaskan territory (considered "Seward's Folly") in 1867

Seward was a passionate abolitionist, which damaged his presidential chances in 1860 though he was a strong contender to Lincoln. Slavery was not abolished in New York until 1827, and I found it an ironic surprise to learn his own father was a slaveholder. He and his father had a strained relationship over tight purse strings, and as a young man, William--or Henry as his friends called him--left school to find employment in Georgia, where he witnessed the mistreatment of slaves. He remained devoted to the abolitionist cause even after his family reconciled with him, and called him home to New York to finish his law degree.

Seward earned a reputation for defending a black man accused of murdering four white people following escape from jail. Seward argued a new defense strategy, insanity, citing the abuse the man William Freeman incurred in prison. Seward was an advocate for prison reform and humane treatment for the insane. Seward also defended an underground railroad conductor by the name of John Van Zandt who was sued by a slaveholder. Seward's wife Frances was even more devoted to the abolitionist cause than he. After the Fugitive Slave law of 1850, the couple opened their own home as a safe house along the Underground Railroad route passing through Auburn, New York. 

In the mid 1850's the Sewards met Harriet Tubman in their mutual work on the Underground Railroad. Frances Seward gave Margaret Tubman a place to stay in Auburn after Harriet brought her niece from Maryland. In 1857, a permanent home was offered to Harriet to house her aging parents, whom she had helped escape in a daring trip south. For a while they stayed in Canada, but the active anti-slavery sentiment in Auburn assured her of their safekeeping.  In 1859 the Sewards sold that property to Harriet for a small sum. Harriet would use this house as a base of operations throughout the rest of her activity on the Underground Railroad. 

Harriet met and later married Nelson Davis, and the Auburn wedding was attended by the Sewards, among many other friends. The brick structure of the Harriet Tubman Home on her 25 acre parcel of land is where she spent most of her living from 1859-1913, a part of the Harriet Tubman National Historic Park in Auburn exists to honor her work and legacy. The Thompson Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church which she helped finance and build remains on the property as well as the home for indigent and elderly African Americans which was her dream to provide after the war.

Tubman died in 1913 at the venerable age of 93. She is buried in Auburn at the Fort Hill Cemetery, which became listed on the National Register of Historic places in 1999.

Kathleen L. Maher’s first crush was Peter Rabbit, and she’s loved conflicted heroes ever since. She has two novellas in BARBOUR BOOKS' collections: Victorian Christmas Brides and Lessons on Love. Winner 2012 ACFW Genesis Award. Author of Sons of the Shenandoah Series: The Abolitionist's Daughter and The Chaplain's Daughter.
Kathleen and her husband live in an old farmhouse in upstate NY.
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My first book, The Abolitionist's Daughter provides a look into the Underground Railroad through a fictitious family and features real heroes of the Underground Railroad. Book 2 in Sons of the Shenandoah series, The Chaplain's Daughter, kicks off five days of a Free Kindle Event. Be sure to download your free copy today through November 12 on Amazon.

BOOK GIVEAWAY AND SPIES IN HOOP SKIRTS (PART IV)

ANNE GREENE here: This fourth part of my series ends with other lady spies, first Confederate spies and then Union spies. I so hope you’ve enjoyed this series. If so, I’d love to hear from you.

Hundreds of women served as spies for the Confederate army during the Civil War. They often carried information about the enemy's plans, troop size and fortifications on scraps of paper or fabric which they sewed into their blouses and petticoats or rolled into their hair. To smuggle goods such as morphine, ammunition or weapons, they attached them to the frame of their hoop skirts or hid them in baskets and packages, even inside dolls.

Most women spies volunteered for the job, but some were recruited by spymasters. Most fit this description: lady spies were young, white, well-to-do and unmarried, as well as attractive, charming, intelligent, and quick-witted. They by-passed society’s strict rules by meeting men in various locations, and riding horses and in buggies unaccompanied.

Apprehended Confederate women spies were often branded as prostitutes unless their reputations were strong enough to protect them. Punishment for the crime of espionage was imprisonment or deportation to Canada or the South. Male spies were hanged.

Confederate lady spies often gathered information from Union troops who, when occupying southern towns, invited local women to army-sponsored balls, where they would sometimes talk about their military plans, not realizing the potential for espionage.

These women spies eavesdropped on soldiers during dinner parties, at boarding houses where the soldiers stayed, or gathered information from their friends and connections in southern society.

Although it was important for spies to keep a low profile while they worked, once they were detected or released from prison, spies like BELLE BOYD became instant celebrities after the press published their stories.

Belle was born into a Virginia family with strong Southern loyalties. A celebrated beauty, Isabelle Belle Boyd became one of the Confederacy’s most notorious spies after a skirmish with a drunken Union soldier in July 1861. The man invaded her home, tore down a Confederate flag, and spoke offensively to her mother. Enraged, the seventeen-year-old Belle shot and killed him. Acquitted of the crime, but closely watched by Union troops, she beguiled her enemies into revealing military secrets, which she transmitted to Confederate commanders.

In May 1862 Belle stayed in Fort Royal, Virginia, with relatives whose hotel had been taken over by Union officers. She

eavesdropped on their meetings through a hole in a door and rode through enemy lines, to report to Confederate General Stonewall Jackson. Imprisoned that July in Washington, D.C., she was released a month later. A second incarceration the following year ended with her banishment to the South.

Belle sailed for England in May 1864 to serve as a Confederate courier but was intercepted by Union troops. One of them, a naval officer named Samuel Hardinge, fell in love with the alluring spy and helped her escape to London, where they wed. He died shortly thereafter. Belle, now a widow and mother at 20, remained in England to compose her memoirs and launch a successful stage career. She later returned to America, where she continued acting, married twice more and lectured on her wartime experiences across the United States.

MARY KATE PATTERSON was no so famous. When the Civil War began she was sixteen. Mary Kate and her family lived a few miles southeast of Nashville, Tennessee. Vivacious Mary Kate, with flashing brown eyes and dark brown curls, attended old Elliott School in Nashville, Tennessee. Declaration of war between the North and South interrupted her education, but the contacts she made in school were invaluable during her service as a Confederate spy.

The Federal army occupied Nashville early in the war. Mary Kate provided information to Coleman's Scouts, a spy network of the Army of Tennessee. She befriended Yankees officers and frequently obtained passes to Nashville, where she gathered secret messages and supplies for the Scouts and hid them in her buggy's false bottom.

Mary Kate smuggled boots, blankets, and anything needed by the Confederate army through the lines, concealing quinine and morphine in her voluminous riding habits. She admitted after the war, when it was too late for reprisal, that she had carried six hundred dollars’ worth of medicine in just one trip. She and her family sheltered and fed Confederate soldiers, signaling them by a certain arrangement of louvers and lanterns in the windows when it was safe to come in for medical help and hot meals.

Widowed three times, when she died in 1931, she was buried in the Confederate Circle in Nashville's Mt. Olivet Cemetery, the first woman so honored.

BELLE EDMONDSON, born in Mississippi in 1840, served as a Confederate agent throughout the war. In 1862 after the fall of Memphis, she smuggled supplies and funds to the Confederate army. Her love of the South and of danger attracted her to spying, carrying mail and smuggling. In 1863, she worked for the Independent Scouts, headed by Captain Thomas Henderson.

She lived near Memphis, Tennessee and smuggled supplies to Confederate soldiers throughout the war. In 1864, since soldiers did not search women, she hid uniforms, money, buttons, letters, etc. in her luggage and on her clothing and took them through Union lines.

Belle’s trips eventually attracted the attention of Union forces and they issued a warrant for her arrest. In July 1864, she fled south to Mississippi and lived there for the rest of the war. She was engaged three times. The third was announced two weeks before her sudden death in 1873.And finally, I want to speak of two Union spies who did not fit the profile of lady spies.

PAULINE CUSHMAN was a stage actress who later became a spy for the Union army. Born Harriett Wood in New Orleans on June 10, 1833, Pauline was raised in Michigan, but returned to Louisiana at age eighteen to became a stage actress, changing her name to Pauline Cushman.

Two Confederate soldiers, Colonel Spear and Captain Blincoe, offered Pauline money to toast Confederate President Jefferson Davis during a performance.

Offended, she visited Union Colonel Moore to report the men. Moore directed Pauline to carry out the toast, hoping to embed her as a local Union spy.

She toasted Davis and was promptly fired from the production, since they now believed her to be a Confederate sympathizer.

Since she had successfully gained the trust of the local Confederates, Pauline began posing as a Confederate camp follower in Kentucky and Tennessee. She disguised herself as a man while gathering information from soldiers in local saloons.

After visiting the camp of General Braxton Bragg in May of 1863, Pauline obtained the general’s battle plans, but aroused suspicion and was caught. She was tried in a military court and sentenced to death. But her execution was delayed when she became ill.

Shortly after, the Union army invaded Shelbyville, Tennessee, where she was being held, forcing the Confederates to flee without her.

Despite her brush with death, Pauline continued to spy for the Union army. At war’s end, President Abraham Lincoln awarded her the honorary rank of Brevet-Major, earning her the nickname “The Spy of Cumberland.” She was buried with military honors in the Golden Gate National Cemetery.

HARRIET TUBMAN set up a vast spy ring in the south, sending African-American men to pose as servants in order to gather intelligence for the Union army.

One of the most celebrated heroines in American history, Harriet Tubman is best known for ushering slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad in the 1850s. But not everyone knows that the courageous Harriet, who escaped slavery in 1849, set up the vast espionage ring.

In early 1862, with the support of abolitionist friends in the North, Harriet traveled to South Carolina, where she served as a nurse and teacher for the hundreds of newly liberated slaves who had assembled in Union camps. She recruited black men to slip behind Confederate lines, posing as servants or slaves to gather military intelligence. She organized dangerous missions in which Union troops destroyed plantations and spirited former slaves to freedom on warships. In June 1863, Harriet led an armed expedition along the Combahee River, disrupting Confederate supply lines and liberating more than seven hundred slaves. Later in life, Harriet became a key figure in the suffrage movement.

Which of the Civil War Spies In Hoop Skirts did you like the most? Would you have liked to have lived during that historic period? Do you prefer the freedom of today’s clothing styles or the beauty and romance of the styles of the 1860s? Leave a comment for a chance to win an autographed copy of Angel With Steel Wings.

Thanks for visiting and please leave a comment for a chance to win an autographed copy of Angel With Steel Wings.

ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS is a World War II romance where Steel Magnolias meet Band of Brothers. While doing her part test flying planes as a Woman Air Service Pilot, WASP, Mandy McCabe escapes her dead-end life in Hangman’s Hollow, Tennessee. But, can she escape from her past? Major Harvey Applegate lost his wife to the WASP program, and he’s convinced Yankee Doodle Gals have no place flying in the war effort. He determines to protect the remaining WASPs by sending them packing back to the home front. Both Mandy and Harvey experience immediate attraction, which increases Harvey’s desire to send Mandy home to safety. Can a man burdened with memories of death undertake added emotional danger? Will their new love survive the test? One love. Two goals. Someone has to give.

ANNE GREENE delights in writing about alpha heroes who aren’t afraid to fall on their knees in prayer, and about gutsy heroines. Her Women of Courage Series, first book, ANGEL WITH STEEL WINGS spotlights heroic women of World War II, and read her private investigating series, Handcuffed In Texas, first book HOLLY GARDEN, PI, RED IS FOR ROOKIE. Enjoy her other award-winning historical romances and novellas. Anne’s highest hope is that her stories transport the reader to an awesome new world and touch hearts to seek a deeper spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus. Buy Anne’s books on http://www.Amazon.com. Type in Anne Greene. Visit Anne at AnneGreeneAuthor.com.