Pulitzer Prize-winning author delivers talk at Binghamton University’s Downtown Center

On Tuesday, Feb. 24, Edda L. Fields-Black, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning historian and author of Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War, delivered a lecture based on her book at the College of Community and Public Affairs’ University Downtown Center. Fields-Black, professor of history and director of the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences Center at Carnegie Mellon University, is also the descendant of one of the men who fought alongside Tubman in the Combahee River Raid.

Despite the many histories about Tubman, Fields-Black notes a glaring omission: Tubman’s role during the Civil War, particularly her leadership in the June 1863 Combahee River Raid, where she commanded a ring of spies, scouts, and pilots and participated in military expeditions behind Confederate lines, eventually leading to the liberation of more than 700 enslaved people from rice plantations in South Carolina.

According to Fields-Black, the raid, led by Colonel James Montgomery with 300 Black soldiers from the Second South Carolina Volunteers and a company of the Third Rhode Island Heavy Artillery, led to the largest slave rebellion in U.S. history. Before the raid, the Union Army and Navy had secured nearby Beaufort, South Carolina, in the Battle of Port Royal, establishing a Union presence in the area. Additionally, the raid occurred during the “sick season,” when malaria and typhoid fever were widespread in the rice fields of South Carolina’s Lowcountry, prompting the Confederate army to withdraw many of its troops, leaving only small detachments and land mines to slow the Union advance.

Here, Tubman played a crucial role by interrogating many of the formerly enslaved Black refugees whose labor had been exploited by the Confederate army in laying the mines and other defensive fortifications, gathering intelligence that proved valuable to Union efforts.

“So, these enslaved men were forced to build fortifications and move ammunition. They’re behind Confederate lines serving troops, so they know where everything is,” Fields-Black explained. “They really became the eyes and ears of the U.S. military, and Tubman was there to interview them.”

Fields-Black explains that she felt compelled to write this story as much as a piece of our country’s history as it is of her own family history. Her great-great-great-grandfather, Hector Fields, was with Tubman in one of the boats used in the raid. Fields-Black describes writing this book as finding puzzle pieces and putting them together without a finished picture to look at.

“I wasn’t sure how it would all fit together at the beginning,” she said.

Fields-Black says her book follows three main characters: Tubman, the freedom seekers, and the rivers and swamps and rice fields of the Combahee delta where the raid took place—creating an intergenerational account of extended enslaved families forced to work South Carolina’s deadly tidal rice swamps. In fact, Fields-Black spent 18 months in residence, mapping primary sources onto the land itself and documenting firsthand the dangers of the rice fields.

“On most of these plantations, people would have walked at least a mile from slave cabins to the rice fields, starting at 4 a.m., when you can’t even see your hand in front of your face. They were standing up to their ankles in muck and water that was infested with alligators, copperheads, water moccasins, and rattlesnakes,” she said.

Fields-Black explains the challenges of writing a story about enslaved people, noting the difficulties in documenting Tubman’s Civil War service due to the lack of official military records. However, oral histories from Tubman’s family and correspondence, including letters, from various abolitionists confirm Tubman’s roles as nurse, cook, and spy for the Union Army, including her involvement at Combahee.

Her research was largely supported by Civil War Pension Records, part of the National Archives, which provided detailed information about enslaved communities, including their surnames, the plantations on which they lived, and personal histories. These accounts also included intimate details about the enslaved community, such as their dating history and family dynamics, providing a comprehensive view of their lives.

“For the first time, we are seeing accounts that humanize the enslaved where before, we just had this mass category, right, of people who survived or they didn’t,” Fields-Black said. “And now we’re seeing them as people, people who grew up together, people who went to church together. Just, you know, very intimate human relationships.”

Fields-Black concludes by highlighting that the formerly enslaved men, women, and children of Combahee were freedom fighters. The morning after the raid, more than 150 Black men joined the South Carolina Volunteers, the regiment responsible for their liberation, demonstrating their willingness to risk their lives for their newfound freedom.

“The Combahee River Raid took 756 freedom seekers out of the rice fields,” Fields-Black said. “People who would have died rather than be re-enslaved. Yet they were ready to risk their freedom and their very lives for the freedom of others. And in these challenging moments, these times of adversity, I think we can draw inspiration and instruction from their examples.”

The event was sponsored by the Harriet Tubman Center for Freedom and Equity at Binghamton University in partnership with the Department of History, Provost’s Office, Harpur College Dean’s Office, Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Decker College of Nursing and Health Sciences.