Civil War Sunday Throwback - Historic Walls

This post was originally written in September of 2014.

Civil War Sunday - Historic Walls

The escaped slaves huddled in the cluttered basement.  It was cluttered intentionally, to give them places to hide if the basement was raided.

It was cold and damp, but they did not care.  They had suffered every day of their lives - forced to labor from an early age, with little opportunity to rest.  Some labored on plantations, in the hot, burning sun.  Some were house slaves, attending to their master's every whim.  Others were skilled craftsmen, who had to give some or all of their earnings over to their masters. Some knew extreme cruelty.  Others knew mainly neglect.   They all, however, had one thing in common:

They had the burning desire for FREEDOM.  It was the desire that made them risk everything.  If they were caught, death or cruel punishments awaited, so they only had this one chance.  Somehow, they all had met up with this guide, the guide that would take them north to a magical place called Canada, where men hired by their masters to hunt them down and bring them back could not pursue them.

And now they were in this basement, in a place called New York State, just a few days run from freedom.  It was so close!

The guide had brought them there, but they could only stay a night or two. Then they had to move on.

The house was owned by a white man.

Who was the white man who was sheltering them for the night?

It may have been the man who owned this house in Auburn, New York.  This house was owned by someone who may well have become the Republican candidate for President in 1860.  But Abraham Lincoln got that nomination instead, and the owner of this house became Abraham Lincoln's Secretary of State during the Civil War.

He became a friend of former slave, Underground Railroad conductor and overall amazing woman  Harriet Tubman, whom I blogged about last Sunday.  In fact, for some years, they lived only a couple of miles apart, on South Street in Auburn, New York.

His name was William H. Seward. When I went to school, I learned of him only in connection with something he did in 1867.  His entire history before that date was a big unknown.

Photography is not permitted in the house or in the basement that was a stop on the Underground Railroad prior to the Civil War, but I can show you the exterior and grounds of this house.

Ironically, Seward was the son of a New York slaveholder, growing up just north of New York City at a time before slavery was outlawed in New York State. As a child, one of his playmates was a slave owned by a neighbor, a black boy who escaped one day after a vicious beating due to a prior escape attempt.  As an older teen, he lived for a time in the Southern state of Georgia, and what he saw of slavery during his time there turned him totally against the "peculiar institution".

Seward risked a lot in sheltering slaves in the years prior to the Civil War, but he risked even more by being an anti-slavery Senator.  He lost the opportunity to run for President of the United States as he was so hated in the states that ended up seceding and forming the Confederate States of America.

(As for those slaves, did they succeed in reaching freedom? We will never know. But like many things in the Civil War, everything was complicated. White men enslaving blacks.  White men helping slaves to freedom....although few of those white men considered blacks as their human equals, and that must also be pointed out.)

Seward nearly lost his life on the night that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.  The plotters, who included John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln's assassin), also targeted others in Lincoln's administration for death.  The man assigned to assassinate the Vice President lost his nerve. The man assigned to assassinate Seward, Lewis Paine, went to Seward's house, gained entrance by trickery, attacked Seward's son Frederick,  and seriously wounded Seward.

Seward survived. However,  Seward's wife died of a heart attack shortly afterwards.

After the Civil War ended, Seward remained Secretary of State under Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson.  In 1867, he purchased land in North America from the Russians, who had lost interest in that piece of land. Many people opposed that sale.  They called it Seward's Folly. But the sale went through. 

That land became, almost 100 years later, the State of Alaska.  You could say, though, that Seward had the last laugh when Alaska became our 49th state and proved its worth during the Cold War.

William Seward died in 1872 and is buried just a few blocks away from that house in Auburn.  His last words were "Love one another".

Look at that house.  It's a house that sheltered escaped slaves, was the home of a governor/senator/Secretary of State/ and saw a bloody assassination attempt turned back.  Kings and princes visited Seward there and dined with him, as did many famous people of the 1800's.

Their pictures line the walls of the house.  But you won't see any portraits of the slaves that sheltered in that cluttered basement.  I can wonder what happened to them, and their descendants.

It's a cliche to say "if only those walls could talk" - but, if only those upstate New York historic walls could talk, what would they say to us of the 21st century?

Civil War Sunday -Two Tales of a Tubman

History is not a selection of boring dates and facts.  History is the story of us, the human race.

History is full of people whose stories are as fascinating as anything you will ever find in fiction.

The American Civil War period (1861-1865 and the years before and after) are full of fascinating stories of people who, in another age, may have gone unnoticed.  But here they were, in unusual or hard times, and they changed the course of the human race.

Last Sunday, I blogged about a great man, born a slave, who became an orator, an abolitionist, a supporter of women's right to vote, an educator, and a newspaperman (among other things).  Frederick Douglass had many links with my native New York State.  So many stories of history are just around the corner, or mere miles away, from where you live.

Today, while thinking about upstate New York, I think about a woman, also born into slavery, who accomplished so much:  Harriet Tubman.  So I had this post partially written when realized that I had blogged about Tubman before, in September of 2014.  So, readers, you have two Tubman stories for the price (so to speak) of one.

Ms. Tubman was born a slave in Maryland, as Douglass had been.  Her original name was Araminta Harriet Ross.  Like Douglass, she did not know exactly when she was born - it is estimated she was born between 1820 and 1825.

Unlike Douglass, Tubman's early life was full of physical abuse, including a head injury inflicted as a punishment as a teen causing her seizures, narcolepsy and other permanent injuries.

After her owner died, Tubman feared for her future - she was sickly, and her economic value as a slave was limited by the injuries she suffered as she was growing up.  Think of her, fearing for her future.  "Just" a slave woman, what could she do about it?

A lot.  Tubman was fortunate enough to live in Maryland, a slave state that bordered Pennsylvania, a free state.  If she made it to Pennsylvania, she would be free.  Tubman successfully escaped slavery in 1849.  Like Douglass, she was able to flee to Pennsylvania.

How did she do it?  She was guided by dedicated opponents of slavery, the Quakers, who, with others, had set up a network called the Underground Railroad.  Walking at night, Tubman would be guided by the North Star, ever further north.  The guides were called "conductors".  She would sleep in hidden basement hiding places at night.   She walked from Maryland into Delaware (another slave state) and finally, into Pennsylvania.  This journey several hours long by car today, took Tubman some seven weeks.

If you were a slave finally free, would you ever go back to slave territory?

Tubman received word that family members were about to be sold.  She went back and guided them to safety.   Again and again, a total of 11 times, Tubman went back into slave territory to guide slaves to freedom, literally risking her life.  She was called "Moses" by some admirers and "The General" by others.  She rescued her brothers, a cousin, and others.

Eventually, slave owners put a $40,000 bounty on her head.  In 2017, many Americans don't even make $40,000. a year.  Back then, $40,000. was a fortune.

Tubman was never caught.  Everyone she "conducted" made it to freedom safely.

During the Civil War, Tubman both acted as a scout and spy, and also guided the Combahee River Raid, which liberated more than 700 slaves in South Carolina.  It is possible that Tubman was the only woman who led a military action during the war.  Tubman was never able to get an official government pension for her service during the war, one of many injustices she suffered during her life.  Congress ended up passing a bill, just for her, to receive a pension, starting around 1897.

Tubman's association with upstate New York started before the war began.  Then-Senator William Seward (the same Seward responsible for the purchase of Alaska from the Russians) sold Tubman a plot of land near Auburn, in the Finger Lakes.

After the war, she lived in this house with her second husband, and an adopted daughter.  Eventually, Tubman started to care for the elderly and infirm in her house, herself suffering from her health problems.

Harriet Tubman's barn

In 1903, Tubman donated a parcel of her land to the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Auburn, which still owns the property today. The Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged opened in 1908, and Tubman ended up living in that facility.

Harriet Tubman's grave - her daughter is buried nearby

Tubman died there in 1913 and is buried in Auburn.

Over the years, Tubman has been more and more admired.  In the next few years, she will be the first woman to be featured on American paper money, the $20. bill, replacing President Andrew Jackson.  And her property will become a National Historic Park.

The recognition is way overdue.