On June 2, 1863, three federal gunboats under the command of Colonel James Montgomery made their way up the Combahee River in South Carolina carrying 300 men of the 2nd South Carolina Volunteer Regiment and the Rhode Island Heavy Artillery. Accompanying Montgomery was Harriet Tubman, an abolitionist who, throughout her life, conducted roughly 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved individuals. That night, Tubman guided Colonel Montgomery through the marshes of the Carolina Lowcountry, and due to her intelligence, Federal troops made three successful landings along the Combahee River. The third was at the Combahee Ferry, owned and operated by the Middleton family and located on the banks of Nieuport Plantation – where U.S. Highway 17 crosses the Combahee River.
Colonel Montgomery ordered the bridge crossing the Combahee River to be destroyed and to raid plantations along the modern-day Colleton County side of the river. Another detachment was ordered to head to the Nieuport Plantation and “confiscate all property and lay waste to what could not be carried off.” In his after-action report, Confederate Caption John Lay reported that at 6:20 a.m., “the enemy had burned all the buildings at Mr. Middleton’s and taken off the Negroes.” Roughly 750 enslaved people self-emancipated that day, and hundreds joined the new 34th Regiment, 21st U.S. Colored Infantry. United States Military Records and Middleton Place Foundation Archives indicate that at least three newly freedmen, now soldiers, could have been from Nieuport Plantation. Colonel Montgomery enlisted three individuals named “Adam (Middleton),” “July (Smalls),” and “Stepney (Grant)” in June of 1863.
Several newspapers covered this successful military operation, notably Free South, a pro-union newspaper based in Beaufort, South Carolina. Free South shared, “Large mansions, known to belong to notorious rebels, with all their rich furniture and rare works of art, were now burned to the ground. Nothing but smoldering ruins and parched and crisp skeletons of once magnificent old live oak and palmetto groves now remains of these delightful country seats.”
On the same historic day 161 years later, the Middleton Place Foundation is excited to host Dr. Edda L. Fields-Black and to share her latest publication, COMBEE: Harriet Tubman, and the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War. Dr. Fields-Black is directly tied to this historic event; she is a descendant of Africans enslaved on rice plantations in Colleton County, South Carolina; her great-great-great grandfather fought in the Combahee River Raid in June of 1863. Her dedication to her research is widely respected and regarded; it has taken her to the rice fields of South Carolina and Georgia and to those in Sierra Leone and the Republic of Guinea in West Africa. This event is free and open to the public; advanced registration is required. Please visit Book Talk with Dr. Edda L. Fields-Black to secure your ticket. 
