McChrysal: Reality of Sailor Harriet Tubman

Review by Bill Doughty

A standout essay in General Stanley McChrystal's latest book, "Leaders: Myth and Reality" (Portfolio/Penguin, 2018) begins on a Union Navy vessel in the littorals of the Deep South during the heart of the Civil War.

"As she boarded the USS John Adams that evening, the white officers tipped their caps to the black woman they knew as 'Moses.' Apart from this polite gesture, she was paid no special attention. The 300 troops had business to take care of, and Harriet Tubman was a part of that team, with duties of her own."

Colonel James Montgomery, who commanded the 2nd South Carolina Volunteer Regiment, relied on Tubman – who had been serving as a nurse and spy for the Union Army – to guide him, his officers and 300 mostly black troops twenty-five miles up the Combahee River. They left from Beaufort, South Carolina to destroy Confederate communication and supplies and free slaves if possible.

USS John Adams depicted (in 1846)

"When the boats set off upriver, Tubman, as head scout, assumed her place next to Colonel Montgomery. It's an incongruous scene: a five-foot-tall, forty-one-year-old black woman going on a raid to free slaves in the middle of the Civil War. Heading to a battle, the officers and soldiers of the 2nd South Carolina didn't show concern with the symbolism of a middle-aged, formerly enslaved woman wearing a dress amid all the men in blue uniforms. All they cared about was her competence as a scout."

In terse prose that attempts to separate fact from myth, McChrystal and his co-authors Jeff Eggers and Jason Mangone show the difficulties Tubman faced as a slave before she escaped to become a matriarch and leader of the abolitionist movement.

She suffered separations, beatings and brain damage that left her with stupors, seizures and religious visions.

"According to a journalist who wrote about Tubman in 1863, her head injury made her 'subject to a sort of stupor or lethargy at times; coming upon her in the midst of conversation, or whatever she may be doing, and throwing her into a deep slumber, from which she will presently rouse herself, and go on with her conversation or work.' Though Tubman and her family were deeply religious well before her head injury, her skull fracture marks the time when Tubman began having religious visions, which would stay with her for the remaining eighty years of her life and contributed to what she felt was her calling."

Despite her challenges, Tubman made 13 trips into the Deep South during the 1850s as part of the Underground Railroad, a support network of black and white ministers, freethinkers and others opposed to the sin of slavery. Each trip was 450 miles both ways, and the slaves had to travel to Canada or risk being caught and returned.

Tubman is recognized for her leadership qualities of "modesty, duty, perfect truthfulness and integrity." She built relationships and valued cooperation, but she could also be fearless and demanding.

Congressman John Lewis

McChrystal's dedication of this book is: "To John Lewis and John McCain, who remind us that it's possible to keep our humanity while leading with courage and commitment."

The eclectic leaders profiled by the authors include geniuses like Albert Einstein, zealots like Maximilien Robespierre, and reformers like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., among others.

McChrystal and his co-authors offer no clear and simple formulas on being a leader. "It is our hope that by helping to dismantle some common myths we will create space for you and other leaders to interact with reality and respond to your challenges with clear thinking and humility."

In the book's prologue, McChrystal writes, "Finally, by itself, 'Leaders' will not make you into a great leader. It won't overcome weak values, a lack of self-discipline, or personal stupidity. Instead of simplifying the challenges of leading, 'Leaders' will outline and underscore the complexities."

McChrystal and his team offer no paint-by-numbers formulas for being a good leader. They recommend dismantling common myths in order to "interact with reality and respond to your challenges with clear thinking and humility."

Frederick Douglass

To highlight the Tubman essay, McChrystal and his co-authors choose a quote from former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Part of Douglass's quote becomes a "found" haiku:

what you have done would

seem improbable to those

who do not know you

In the book's prologue, McChrystal concludes, "Finally, by itself, 'Leaders' will not make you into a great leader. It won't overcome weak values, a lack of self-discipline, or personal stupidity. Instead of simplifying the challenge of leading, 'Leaders' will outline and underscore the complexities."

Union Sailor George Commodore, 

"Leaders" recommends reading Joseph Campbell, Churchill, Plutarch and tales of Greek and Roman heroes. In fact, the book starts with McChrystal's love of reading.  For the Tubman essay, he recommends Kate Clifford Larson's "Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero" (One World, 2003).

The best leaders are good readers.

Postscript: Interest in this topic and how African Americans served in the Navy in the Civil War led me to this essay by Joseph P. Reidy in Prologue Magazine, online at the National Archives: "Black Men in Navy Blue During the Civil War."