Harriet Tubman, Secret Agent (Direct Mail Edition)

Three stars. An interesting read, but with some reservations.
Beginning: an excellent foundation, showing a general slice of what life was like back then, and how slaves were viewed by people in general, and even touched on how Northerners viewed black people. I had a slight difference of opinion in that John Brown was presented in the light of a good-hearted zealot, when history presents him as a man with a cause so big that he forgot the milk of human kindness and forgot that he had a family to provide for; he likely could have done more good as less of a troublemaker. To be outspoken, but not to carry out terroristic strikes that ultimately got him hanged. Also, with the assumption that Lincoln intended from day one to abolish slavery, when it was a hope and not a set-in-stone plan, and when slavery did not end in all states at the time of the Gettyburg address, and when Lincoln's own general, Grant, was a slaveowner himself.

Toward the middle, I began to wonder how soon Harriet's spying was going to come up. It talked extensively first of her background, and second of the work of other spies in the field at the time. I began to wonder just how much connection she as a person was going to have with the secret-agent portion of the book.

At the end, we briefly have some facts given that shows Harriet was acknowledged for efforts of the sort, but that ultimate proof was no longer available. Tradition tells us she spied, but history does not vouchsafe us the actual scope of it.

Anyway, an interesting book, but not one I would recommend as a primary source of study for young people learning about spies or about Tubman. It would be excellent in conjunction with other books of Tubman's history, or of Civil War spies, but as a stand-alone is more of a teaser than anything else.