by Bryan P. Sears of Maryland Matters
A once-enslaved Maryland woman who became a leader in the Underground Railroad was awarded the rank of general more than 110 years after her death.
Harriet Tubman was given the posthumous commission as a brigadier general in the Maryland National Guard on Monday by Gov. Wes Moore during a Veterans Day ceremony at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park in Dorchester County.
“With each act of courage, Harriet Tubman helped bring us together as a nation and a people. She fought for a kind of unity that can only be earned through danger, risk, and sacrifice. And it is a unity we still benefit from to this day,” Moore said, according to a statement released by his office.
The commission was presented to Ernestine “Tina” Martin Wyatt, Tubman’s great-great-great-grandniece.
Tubman escaped the slavery she was born into on a Dorchester County farm. She became an abolition leader and is credited with rescuing 70 people during 13 trips to Maryland, according to the Harriett Tubman Underground Railroad Byway.
She later worked as a cook, nurse, scout and spy for the Union Army during the Civil War. According to the museum, Tubman became the first woman to “lead an armed expedition in the war.”
That expedition is credited with the liberation of 700 enslaved people.
The posthumous commission is just the latest recognition for Tubman, whose supporters have been fighting for years to have her represented on the $20 bill. In addition to the Tubman Byway on the Eastern Shore, the state in 2020 dedicated statues of her and of another Maryland native, famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass, in the Old House Chamber of the Maryland State House.
