Women in the Civil War

Primary Source Material Analysis: Harriet Tubman

Mrs. Sarah H. Bradford wrote a small book in 1868 for the purpose of raising funds to benefit Harriet Tubman's efforts to buy a house and support herself and her aging parents (Introduction). This book was composed immediately before Bradford set sail for Europe in 1868 and its publication costs were covered by several benefactors. The book is remarkable because it is written by a White abolitionist and suffragist who had become acquainted with Harriet's work on the Underground Railroad through friends and associates.

The stories that Bradford included in the book were corroborated through independent sources and therefore represent a collection of accounts detailing Harriet's struggle to move her family and other slaves north to freedom in Canada along the Underground Railroad. To substantiate the veracity of these accounts Bradford includes in the preface several letters attesting to Harriet's contributions, including one from Frederick Douglass (5-8). What follows is a retelling of Harriet's escape from bondage, her work on the Underground Railroad, and her service in the Union Army during the war. Within this account are scattered letters from colonels, generals, political leaders, and cabinet appointees, including the Surgeon General and Secretary of State, substantiating Harriet's various contributions to the Underground Railroad and Union forces (e.g., 64-71). What this book allows the reader to argue is that Harriet Tubman was a remarkable and courageous woman who contributed in a number of significant ways to combating and ending slavery in the United States.

Another primary source was the final meeting minutes of the New York State Women Suffrage Association Executive Committee (Miller and Miller). The minutes were probably published in the association's state newsletter and later pasted into a scrapbook maintained by the Miller sisters. Its inclusion in the 1905 to 1906 scrapbook maintained by the Millers suggests an approximate date of publication. The minutes described efforts to send a delegate to Oregon on the eve of consideration for a state constitutional amendment giving women full suffrage, including the right to vote, which should provide a good estimation of publication date. Following a long paragraph listing the delegates selected for attending the national convention is another long paragraph briefly describing the publication of Sarah H. Bradford's book on Harriet Tubman's contributions to the Underground Railroad and the war, Harriet's travel to the committee meeting, her stay with committee members, and a brief talk in front of the committee during the morning session.

The Miller sister scrapbook containing this passage is one of several volumes of scrapbooks that document the National American Women Suffrage Association's activities between 1897 and 1911 (Miller and Miller). The inclusion of the New York State Association's minutes help to document the widespread recognition of Harriet Tubman, her status as an ex-slave, and her accomplishments during the pre-war and wartime period. Harriet Tubman had therefore become a respected and famous woman in her own time.

In the year 1898, Harriet Tubman applied for a pension based on her wartime service as nurse, cook, scout, spy, and commander of a Union scout troop (Tubman). A copy of a general affidavit filled out by Harriet Tubman can be found at the National Archives and viewed on their website. In this affidavit Tubman claims that she served as nurse and cook in Union Army hospitals and commanded between eight and nine scouts during the later years of the "rebellion." Her superiors were the Secretary of the War Stanton and "… several generals." She was seeking $1,800 dollars, in addition to the pension she was receiving as a widow of the Union soldier Nelson Davis.