Harriet Tubman's Great Raid in South Carolina

This impeccably accurate, though little known history, is about Harriet Tubman leading a military raid to liberate over 700 South Carolina slaves, in July 1863, with two Union gunboats, with the 3rd Rhode Island regiment and the 2nd SC regiment under Col. James Montgomery--of Missouri-Kansas Border War fame; Col (Rev.) Thomas Wentworth Higginson, friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Massachusetts, raid commander; and David Hunter, his superior officer, friend of Massachusetts Governor Andrews, Department of the South Commander. This raid up the Combahee (or Congaree) River was planned by Tubman with intelligence gathered by her from South Carolina slave escapees and Union funds. That a civilian, woman, and former slave would mastermind this wholly successful and daring raid is historically unprecedented! The story of this raid lends luster to her legend, even as broken promises made to her by the Union, detract from, complicate, and help to explain its grudging necessity of freeing the slaves, as a matter of military necessity, in order to save itself from being rent asunder into twain by the rebel South.

Harriet Tubman's Great Raid

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The hero of the Underground Railroad and her role in a mission to liberate hundreds of South