Harriet Tubman's role in the Civil war

Harriet Tubman

Araminta Ross was born on a slave plantation in the year 1822. When she was a young teen, while working in the fields, a slave owner threw a heavy metal weight at a slave which missed and hit Araminta in the head. After the terrible injury Araminta suffered debilitating seizures and other painful conditions such as visions. She would often say that these visions were God communicating to her, telling her to escape and help her fellow slaves.

In 1844 Araminta Ross married a free black man named John Tubman and took his last name and later she changed her first name to her mother's name Harriet. Only five years after her marriage, fearing that she was going to be sold to another plantation farther south she escaped to Philadelphia using the Underground Railroad, in Philadelphia she found work as a maid and after became an active in the Abolitionist Movement. Later Harriet Tubman joined the underground railroad to help other escaped slaves. But what was the underground railroad? The underground railroad was “the resistance to enslavement through escape and flight, through the end of the Civil War” (nps.gov)

How did the Civil war Begin

In the 1850’s there was a deep divide between the north and the south because the two sides had different opinions over the right of freedom for black people. The passage of compromise in 1850 and the Kansas Nebraska act in 1854 only delayed the Civil war. Middle class whites started to sympathize with the circumstances of the slaves. In March 1852, the public's imagination was captivated with the publication of Harriet Beecher Stow’s book Uncle Tom’s cabin.

In 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected as the President of the United States of America and immediately in December of that same year South Carolina passed an Ordinance of Secession.

And soon after other southern states followed in South Carolina’s footsteps and joined them forming the Confederate States of America. After this it did not take long for the Civil war to erupt, as the North and South could not agree on the issue of slavery and its expansion. As the war began Harriet Tubman was a supporter of Abraham Lincoln.

As the war raged African American leaders responded to the call to fight for their country with enthusiasm. One of these leaders that called for action for all African Americans was Fredrick Douglas he supported the inclusion of African American Troops to test their loyalty and as a path to full citizenship. And other African American leaders such as Jermain Loguen and William Wells Brown also advocated the enlistment of African American Troops in the Union Army.

Harriet Tubman's role in the Civil war

When the Civil war began Harriet Tubman enlisted as the cook and nurse for the Union army. Later she led scouting missions to identify and map the locations of confederate mines, supply areas, and troops. This made her the first ever woman to ever lead an expedition for the United States army. All the expeditions that Harriet Tubman led helped the union army to get closer and closer to winning the civil war, and without Harriet Tubman's help they could have lost it.