Women in the Border State of Maryland Many Maryland women made significant contributions to the Union war effort. As a border state having both slaves and free African American women, Maryland was divided in sentiment between the Union and the Confederacy. The most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman was also an escaped slave from Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Harriet Tubman also served as a Union nurse and spy, and she was the first woman to lead an armed expedition. In June 1863, she guided three steamboats around Confederate mines in the waters surrounding Port Royal, South Carolina in the Combahee River Raid, which liberated more than 700 slaves. Anna Ella Carroll played a significant role as advisor to…
