Narrator: On a humid June night in 1863, three Union gunboats slipped up the Combahee River in South Carolina, deep into Confederate territory. On board was a small, unassuming black woman who was neither a soldier nor an officer, yet she was the mission's chief architect. Using intelligence she had gathered from a network of spies, she guided the ships past hidden Confederate torpedoes. As the boats landed, chaos erupted. Plantations burned, and in the confusion, over 750 enslaved people rushed from the fields, wading through marshes to the promise of freedom aboard the Union vessels. The woman who planned and led this daring military raid, a former slave herself, was Harriet Tubman. This image of Tubman as a military strategist and guerrilla warrior is a world away from the familiar folklore of a simple conductor on the Underground Railroad.

In the biography Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom, author Catherine Clinton dismantles the one-dimensional legend to reveal the full, complex, and astonishing life of a woman who was a revolutionary, a spy, a suffragist, and a lifelong freedom fighter. The book charts her journey from the brutal realities of bondage to her pivotal role in some of the most dramatic events in American history.

Narrator: Harriet Tubman was born into a world designed to crush the human spirit, yet the seeds of her defiance were planted early by the very family slavery sought to tear apart. The book details the harsh environment of Maryland's Eastern Shore, where the constant threat of being "sold south" hung over every enslaved family. Tubman, born Araminta "Minty" Ross, witnessed her own sisters being sold, a trauma that shaped her resolve.

But she also witnessed powerful acts of resistance. Clinton recounts a pivotal story from Tubman's childhood involving her mother, Harriet "Rit" Green. When their master, Edward Brodess, prepared to sell Rit's young son, she took a stand. Hearing the slave trader arrive, Rit hid her son for over a month. When Brodess finally cornered her in her cabin, she issued a chilling threat: "The first man that comes into my house, I will split his head open." The master and the trader, faced with this unyielding maternal fury, backed down. The boy was not sold. For a young Araminta, this was a profound lesson: the system of slavery, as absolute as it seemed, could be challenged. This, combined with a severe head injury from her youth that caused lifelong visions she believed were from God, forged a woman with an iron will and an unshakeable faith in her mission.

Narrator: Tubman's escape in 1849 was not an end but the beginning of a new, dangerous existence. The book emphasizes that freedom for a fugitive was never secure. After her arduous solo journey north, following the North Star to Philadelphia, she found a vibrant black community but also the looming shadow of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. This law federalized the practice of slave-catching, making it a crime for anyone in a free state to aid a fugitive and empowering slaveholders to pursue their "property" anywhere in the country.

This created a climate of terror for all African Americans, free or fugitive. Clinton shares a harrowing account of a trio of free blacks on a train who, upon realizing they had missed their stop in Delaware and were heading into the slave state of Maryland, panicked. One woman leaped from the moving train, followed by a man with his child. The terror of re-enslavement was so profound that they preferred risking death on the tracks to capture. This was the world Tubman navigated. Her freedom was conditional, and this reality solidified her resolve. She famously said, "There was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other."

Narrator: Driven by a desire to free her family, Tubman transformed from a fugitive into a rescuer. She returned to the South again and again, becoming the most famous "conductor" on the Underground Railroad. Her first rescue mission was for her niece, Kizzy, who was about to be sold. Kizzy's free husband, John Bowley, contacted Tubman, who orchestrated a daring plan. Bowley smuggled his wife and their two children onto a boat and rowed them across a bay, where Tubman met them and guided them through the clandestine network to Philadelphia.

This mission marked the beginning of her legend. Over the next decade, she made approximately thirteen trips and rescued around seventy people, including her elderly parents. She became known as "Moses," a leader who, as one abolitionist noted, "never ran her train off the track and never lost a passenger." Clinton reveals that Tubman's success was due to her incredible courage, intimate knowledge of the terrain, and strict discipline. She carried a pistol not just for protection, but to enforce the rule that no one could turn back, as a single person's capture could compromise the entire group. Her command was simple and absolute: "Move or die."

Narrator: As the nation hurtled toward war, Tubman's mission evolved from humanitarian rescue to revolutionary action. This shift is best seen in her alliance with the radical abolitionist John Brown. They met in 1858 as Brown was planning his raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, hoping to spark a massive slave insurrection. He saw in Tubman not just a conductor, but a fellow warrior.

Brown was so impressed by her knowledge and strategic mind that he referred to her as "General Tubman" and wrote, "He [Harriet] is the most of a man naturally; that I ever met with." Tubman, in turn, saw Brown as a prophet, believing "it wasn't mortal man, it was God in him." She helped him plan the raid and recruit former slaves, though a recurring illness prevented her from joining the raid itself. While the Harpers Ferry raid failed and Brown was executed, his actions electrified the nation. For Tubman, it confirmed that slavery would only be destroyed through direct conflict. She continued her own direct actions, famously leading a mob in Troy, New York, to rescue a captured fugitive slave named Charles Nalle from the authorities in 1860.

Narrator: The Civil War provided Tubman with the ultimate opportunity to fight the system she despised. She traveled to Union-occupied South Carolina, initially serving as a nurse and using her knowledge of herbal remedies to treat soldiers suffering from dysentery. But her true value was quickly recognized by Union commanders. She was fluent in the language of the land and its people.

She established a network of scouts and river pilots to gather intelligence on Confederate movements, supply lines, and fortifications. Her work culminated in the 1863 Combahee River Raid. As detailed in the book, Tubman didn't just provide the intelligence; she helped lead the mission. Her spies had pinpointed the locations of Confederate torpedoes, allowing the Union gunboats to navigate the river safely. The raid was a stunning success, liberating over 750 people and destroying millions of dollars of Confederate property without a single Union casualty. A Boston newspaper reported that the raid was led by a "black woman," making Tubman the first woman in American history to lead a military assault.

Narrator: After the war, Harriet Tubman's fight was far from over. She returned to Auburn, New York, where she spent the rest of her life advocating for women's suffrage and caring for her community. Yet she faced a new battle: a three-decade struggle for recognition and compensation from the government she had served. Despite her documented service as a scout and spy, she was repeatedly denied a pension. Her case highlighted the systemic disregard for the contributions of both women and African Americans.

She lamented, "You wouldn't think that after I served the flag so faithfully I should come to want under its folds." It was not until 1899, after years of advocacy by her allies, that Congress finally passed a special bill granting her a pension of $20 a month—not for her own service, but as the widow of a veteran. Her final great project was establishing the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged and Indigent, ensuring her life's work of caring for others would continue. She donated her own property for the cause, cementing a legacy of service that extended far beyond the battlefield.

Narrator: Catherine Clinton's Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom reveals that the true story of Harriet Tubman is far more radical and complex than the sanitized version taught in schools. She was not merely a guide who helped people escape; she was a military intellectual, a political activist, a revolutionary, and a strategist who waged a lifelong war against slavery on every front. Her story is a testament to the power of an individual to challenge an oppressive system, not just with hope, but with intelligence, strategy, and an unyielding will.

Her legacy is best captured in the simple, powerful refrain she used to motivate terrified fugitives on their journey north: "If you are tired, keep going; if you are scared, keep going; if you are hungry, keep going; if you want to taste freedom, keep going." It's a message that transcends her time, a timeless challenge to all who fight for justice: no matter the obstacle, the only way forward is to keep going.