Honoring General Tubman

(Children’s Defense Fund) – On Veterans Day, Nov. 11, the state of Maryland posthumously named Harriet Tubman a one-star brigadier general in Maryland’s National Guard. Many people know about Tubman’s legacy of liberation as she freed herself from slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and then returned to the South more than a dozen times, risking her own life and freedom each time, to lead groups of family members and friends to freedom too. Her fellow abolitionist John Brown first called her “General Tubman,” a name he knew fit “one of the bravest persons on this continent.” Now this new honor officially recognizes her service and leadership during the Civil War – another key piece of her extraordinary legacy.Related Stories She was recruited to serve as a spy and scout by Union officers who already knew her reputation and valued her familiarity with the South, fierce intelligence and fearlessness. While stationed in South Carolina she was quickly able to build a network of local scouts and informants from nearby plantations using many of the same clandestine skills that made her such a successful conductor on the Underground Railroad. Of course she risked being captured and executed if discovered, but that was...