Pension sought for Underground Railroad heroine

NEW YORK — Harriet Tubman earned her spot in American history. Born into slavery, she freed herself, then helped free hundreds of others through the Underground Railroad.

But even though she served in the Civil War as a spy and a scout in the Union Army, neither she nor her descendants ever received a military pension for her service.

"Every person who is in the service gets paid, and I think that she deserves it too," said her great-grandniece, Pauline Copes Johnson of Auburn, N.Y. "I think she really deserves every honor she can get."

Last week, the U.S. Senate made an effort to remedy the problem by including $11,750 in an appropriations bill at the urging of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. If President Bush signs the bill, which has already been approved by the House, the money will be used to help maintain the Harriet Tubman Home, a historic site in Auburn, a small city between Rochester and Syracuse where Tubman lived for many years.

But while the money is appreciated, it is not quite what Tubman's relatives and supporters were looking for. The pension, it turns out, is for her second husband's military service, not hers.

"She has never gotten a pension for her service as a scout or a spy, her actual military service," said Ward DeWitt, executive director of the Harriet Tubman Home Inc. "It's an obligation, I think, of the United States."

No one on Friday could say for sure why Tubman never received a pension, even though she and her descendants had asked for one, or why she was shorted on her husband's.

But Johnson had no doubt.

"The reason why they ignored her is because she was black, for one thing, and because she was a woman, for two," Johnson said.

Tubman was born into slavery in Maryland around 1819 and escaped to Philadelphia when she was 25. There, she became one of the most famous leaders of the Underground Railroad, the system set up by abolitionists to help slaves escape to free states or to Canada. For years, at personal risk, she helped lead hundreds of slaves to freedom. Blacks called her Moses, and awards promised for her capture totaled $40,000 at one point.

During the Civil War, Tubman was by turns a soldier, a spy and a nurse, serving for a time at Fortress Monroe in Virginia and in Hilton Head, S.C.