It’s 1863. Harriet Tubman is facing one of the biggest—and most dangerous— challenges of her life. She has survived her master’s lash, escaped from slavery, and risked her life countless times to lead runaway slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad. Now she has a new role—that of Union spy! The outcome of a secret night raid deep into Confederate territory depends on the accuracy of the intelligence she and other black spies have gathered. Success will mean freedom for hundreds of slaves. Failure will mean death by hanging.
You are about to enter the undercover world of African-American spies—enslaved and free—risking everything in the name of freedom. How were the Underground Railroad and slave songs used to pass secret messages? What were “contrabands” and “Black Dispatches?” What did Harriet have in common with the Secret Six and a maidservant in the home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis? You’ll discover these answers and more as the action unfolds.
Thomas B. Allen, author of the award-winning George Washington, Spymaster, has sifted through military and intelligence archives, diaries, and little-known memoirs from ex-slaves to bring to light new facts about the role Harriet and other black spies played in helping the Union win the war.
This detailed account combined with powerful archival images supplemented with woodcuts by Carla Bauer, maps, a time line, footnotes, and extensive quote sources make this incredibly detailed account an excellent resource for report writing as well as an exciting true-life adventure.
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Sexual Content - 0/5
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Violence - 1/5
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Language - 0/5
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Drugs and Alcohol - 0/5
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Summary
Harriet Tubman, Secret Agent is part history, part biography that centers around African Americans, both enslaved and free, who spied for the Union during the Civil War. It begins with some background information on Harriet Tubman, touching briefly on her birth, enslavement, and eventual escape to freedom, as well as her work on the Underground Railroad. It also sets the groundwork for the Civil War, starting with slave revolts in Haiti and then going on to detail John Brown’s violent abolitionist efforts, his arrest at Harper’s Ferry, and untimely execution. Harriet and Brown had met and supported each other’s efforts at ending slavery. As it happens, Brown seemed to very much admire Harriet and thought of her as a general in this effort. From there, it moves into the Civil War and the role that African Americans played, both as spies for the Union and as enlisted soldiers and sailors in the Union army and navy, periodically coming back to Harriet’s various roles during the war. It concludes with a brief epilogue regarding Harriet playing most of her former spy work close to the vest, but revealing a few things to her biographer and family members before her death.
This book is probably best-suited for older elementary and middle grade readers. Out of all the kid-oriented biographies available on Harriet Tubman, I chose this one to start with because it seemed like it would cover a part of her life, that of a secret agent, which isn’t something I’d really heard or learned about before. However, that’s not exactly what I got. Despite this book begin titled Harriet Tubman, Secret Agent, there is at least one chapter where Harriet isn’t mentioned at all and several others where she barely factors into the narrative. The book begins and ends with bits of her life and she’s basically the thin line of glue that holds the rest of it together, but I couldn’t help feeling that for a book with her name in the title, she didn’t play nearly as strong of a role as I would have expected. I will admit that I learned some things I didn’t know about how important African American spies were to the Union cause in the Civil War, so that was a plus and why I was still able to give it 3.5 stars. However, I felt like the execution was lacking. Not only does Harriet Tubman, the ostensible subject of the book, not appear nearly often enough, there were simply too many players. It made the story feel like a game of chess with too many movable parts, and it was hard to keep track of them all. IMHO, this also caused the story to lack a cohesive flow and be a bit dry. I really wanted to love this book and while there were some interesting bits, the disconnected nature of Harriet’s role and my other aforementioned critiques often left my mind wandering and prevented it from becoming a keeper. I can’t help thinking that if I, as a adult, had a hard time following it, that kids certainly will too and might easily become bored by the lack of an exciting narrative.
Review provided by The Hope Chest Reviews