Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part one: Provocations (1821-1852) -- A Nantucket inheritance (1833-1843) -- A young lady of means (1824-1837) -- Escape from Maryland (1822-1849) -- The Freeman trial (1846) -- Dangerous women (1848-1849) -- Frances goes to Washington (1848-1850) -- Martha speaks (1850-1852) -- Part two: Uprisings (1851-1860) -- Frances joins the railroad (1851-1852) -- Reading Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852-1853) -- Harriet Tubman's Maryland crusade (1851-1857) -- The race to the territory (1854) -- Bleeding Kansas, bleeding summer (1854-1856) -- Frances sells Harriet a house (1857-1859) -- Martha leads (1854-1860) -- General Tubman goes to Boston (1858-1860) -- The agitators (1860) -- Part three: War -- "No compromise" (1861) -- A nation on fire (1861-1862) -- "God's ahead of Master Lincoln" (1862) -- Battle hymns (1862) -- Harriet's war (1863) -- Willy Wright at Gettysburg (March-July 1863) -- A mighty army of women (1863-1864) -- Daughters and sons (1864) -- Part four: Rights (1864-1875) -- E pluribus unum (1864-1865) -- Retribution (1865) -- Civil disobedience (1865) -- Wrongs and rights (1865-1875).

Chronicles the revolutionary activities of Harriet Tubman, Frances Seward, and Martha Wright--friends and neighbors in Auburn, New York--discussing their vital roles in the Underground Railroad, abolition, and the early women's rights movement.