Chapter 1 A Dangerous Mission Three war boats sailed down the river The boats carried 150 black soldiers who once had been It was a dangerous job The enemy had put slaves They were making a sneak attack on the enemy in South Carolina underwater bombs in the river At any moment a gunboat could blow up The soldiers had to surprise the enemy They had to destroy bridges and supplies before enemy soldiers could fight back The boats moved quietly in the fog Slaves saw the gunboats and became scared They started moving away from the river Then one boat moved closer to shore A tiny person stood on deck and started singing The slaves stopped moving away They knew that song They recognized the voice as a call to freedom 4
Suddenly hundreds of slaves turned and ran for the river Women ran with babies in their arms Children hung onto their skirts Hundreds of slaves young and old splashed into the water They couldn’t swim But they would make a break for freedom or die trying slaves up into the boats They had to make a quick getaway and they did The mission was a success The gunboats carried more than 700 slaves north In the North they would no longer be slaves They would live as free people Soldiers worked quickly They kept pulling 6
Harriet the Conductor Who was the brain behind this bold mission Who planned the attack Who chose the troops and trained them The leader was a top war spy for the United States government Her name was Harriet Tubman Harriet had a lot of spy experience She had led slaves to freedom long before the Civil War broke out Harriet was a conductor of the Underground Railroad Spy Moves Sometimes Harriet wore disguises for trips She might dress as a man or an old woman Tubman always met the slaves on Saturday nights This would give them a head start Newspapers did not print lists of runaway slaves until Monday morning 7
