i am pleased to introduce our guests. ida fales black, author of comedy harriet tubman the combahee river great and black freedom during the civil war, phils black teaches history at carnegie mellon university and has written about the history of west african rice farmers, including such works, deep roots rice farmers in west africa and the african diaspora. she co-edited. she was a coeditor of rice global networks and new histories, which was selected as a choice outstanding academic title feels black has served as a consultant for the smithsonian smithsonian national museum of african american history and permanent exhibit rice fields of the lowcountry. she is the executive producer

and libelous of i'm buried unmarked requiem for rice a widely perform and original contemporary classical work by celebrated composer john wineglass fils black is a descendant of africans enslaved rice plantations in callington counties. carolina her great great great grandfather fought the combahee river raid in june 1863. how determined nation to illuminate the riches of the gullah and to reclaim geechee history and culture has taken her to the rice fields of south carolina and georgia, to those of sierra leone and the republic of new guinea in west africa. please join me in welcoming, welcoming either feels black to the library in baltimore discuss her latest work.

thank you much it's to be here today in baltimore. wonderful to be so close to harriet tubman's birthplace today on pub day, which is official day that can be is released. i want to thank the enoch pratt library for inviting i want to thank. agent and my editor and the entire team at oxford university press and i want to thank my family, which has supported me throughout this rather long and tortuous journey. it's fun to say that on the day, right? that actually brought things to fruition. i want to be that we're starting out in the right place.

that's where we need to start. okay. so as i mentioned, the pub day four can be and i'm excited to tell you today what happened on june first and second of 1863 when harriet tubman and her group of spies, scouts and pilots piloted colonel james montgomery, the second south carolina volunteer, which were black soldiers, the third rhode island heavy. one company which were white soldiers up to serpentine can be river burned rice plantations to the ground and rescued. 756 enslaved people from bondage. this was the largest slave rebellion in u.s. history. and second only to the haitian in the entire world.

so i'm going to start where i think the raid all begins and that would be with the battle of port royal in coastal south carolina on november seventh, 1861, when the us navy drove, its armada, the largest armada date in history, up port royal sound and white and black residents of the area. this would be buford. this would be the scylla and this would be port royal. remember this day differently, the white planners referred to it as the great skedaddle. because they fled when they saw the armada coming. they got out of dodge and they

tried to push, pull, drag force, often at gunpoint. the people they held in bondage to follow them. so the descendant of the enslaved, the who today would call themselves particularly people from the sea islands called it gun shoot at bay point because when the guns started shooting at bay point the, white people left and they were free. they weren't exactly, but they were no longer enslaved. okay. so important to know, to situate ourselves. okay. so the battle of port royal takes place on the coast. the cambie. the lower can be where the rice are located. it's about 40 miles away and i

have it on good authority. mary boynton chestnut wrote in her diary about the battle of port because her cousin was married to one of the can be planters william l. kirkland, and she was very concerned about her property. now, her cousin was not that concerned at all, but there were other can be planter ers who knew that this spelled trouble that the u.s. army. i'm sorry, the u.s. navy first and then the army came in and occupied buford the sea islands head after the navy came in and drove the confederate writs out. she knew that it spelled trouble and i think the enslaved people on the can be knew that the

union had come and this spelled freedom for. in the book i've been able to try to trace several formerly enslaved who left the company who liberated themselves and went to buford and worked for the u.s. army quartermaster after gun shoot at bay point. so the combahee river raid really begins. the battle of port royal. okay. and the battle of port royal inaugurates the port royal. there are. 8000 formerly enslaved people who are freed and these formerly enslaved people are in, in all respects, abandoned right there without, uh, their whites, shall

we say something that we're thinking about the civil war period would have been in, according to the planters. but according to the union as well. so this inaugurates the port royal experiment, which was the largest social movement to date. so you have volunteers from the north, abolitionists, teachers, mission manning jurors, people who come down to open schools to, manage the labor on the sea island, cotton plantations to open stores in came and the notion is that they are going to teach enslaved people how be free, that they are going to help bridge this gap between

freedom between enslavement and freedom. and i talk in the book about how, of course, this doesn't work the way the rhetoric would would paint. and there are many promises on the side of the u.s. government. so there's lot of tension in this relationship. and it's in this context that it's in this context. and this is a picture of a sea cotton plantation with u.s. army soldiers is posing with formerly enslaved people whose labor being used to harvest the cotton plant. the cotton crop and the cotton crop then sold for the of the u.s. government to finance the war. it's in this cotton that harriet tubman is sent down. tubman was sent by governor of massachusetts to act as a spy for the u.s. army of the south.

she wore many hats. many women who came down as part the port royal experiment wore many hats. tubman in was not a a part of this port royal right but she's in that period she's in that context. she is in place where having a part of the abolitionist community in massachusetts and in philadelphia fear she's encountering people she knows. right. these abolition is circles are are pretty small. they're pretty small. and i'm going to show you just how small they are in a minute. so tubman is coming down during this movement, even though she is not volunteer teacher, she's not there to manage labor. but of the women who are there

during this time period, many of them are wearing many hats. so on the one hand, she is a spy. on the other hand, also works as a nurse in the contraband hospitals. she's also an entrepreneur, so she works as a cook. she takes in laundry, particularly laundry of u.s. army officers. and i suggest that that was also a cover for her intelligence gathering. right. that she actually working for general gilmore as a laundry and taking in laundry and therefore passing on information to u.s. army commanders. she also ran her cook shop in downtown buford. she made ginger and root beer and gingerbread i'm sorry. and root beer and. she paid formerly enslaved people who were contraband of

considered contraband of war by the u.s. government. she paid them to sell these items for her. so she's self-sufficient. she, after her initial in which she is given permission to shop at the commissary where, the officers shop, she refuses because she finds. is that it creates distance between her and the freedom seekers and she doesn't want them to feel as if she is any different than are. so she makes her money in the ways that i have. so another phase of the battle, port royal and the port royal experiment is the enlistment of black troops right after the emancipate proclamation. you have the enlistment of the first south carolina volunteer. which are the first south carolina regiment of black to be

organized. the second south carolina, which conducted the raid is organize just a few weeks later in february of 1863. so one of the research challenges in writing can be and there were many was that civil war service is not described in the military record and historian finds particularly civil war historians have used that absence to deny that she was there or to deny that she actually played an important role. so i wanted to document her civil war service, which is was can be is now out. it was the least studied chapter of her life.

and so i had to figure out how i was going to do this. and you know, these things are hindsight is always 20. you know, you've know that you have figured it out once. you've actually figured it out. i, i just turned over every rock until i found something. and what i found were letters. and these were letters that were written by the sons and they were all male sons of northern abolitionists people who tubman knew in the community, in 1850s, before the war, when she was part of these communities. she knew their parents. and then she met their son in port royal. she probably knew the sons also. but my point is, these abolitionist networks were real

and far reaching. right. and so people who were working together and attending lectures together and organizing together in the northeast east? some of them actually volunteered to come down and and roll their sleeves up and get their hands dirty and giving, you know, putting their education on pause, some of them putting their marriages on pause, leaving their families. so that they could come down and assist in this social movement. so one of the first letters i found was in a private collection. and this is something that not seen the light of day, which for a historian is thrilling to find something that no one else has seen, that no one else has cited, that, you know, other history, sense of of the period don't know exists.

one of my research assistants turned the collection in a master's thesis and i was able track it down the letters writer letter name is james seymour severance. he was a young guy who was in school at harvard. his parents were abolitionists and when the port royal, the battle of port royal broke out and the port royal experiment began, he asked his father and his father helped him to get a position down in port royal and he didn't quite tell folks that his mom was this big abolitionist back in massachusetts. she wasn't one of the big ones that i'm going to talk about in a minute. but she was pretty well known. you she could have gotten him in easy desk job doing something that was less labor intensive. so he's down there doing some

some grunt work for the movement and he overhears a converse where the architect of the port royal experiment whose name is edward l pierce is venting because he's just received a letter that harriet tubman is coming down. this is may. of 1862. and and l pierce is saying, why are they sending her? number one i asked for a man number. she can't teach. tubman, of course, was illiterate. what good is she we don't need her. and this young, very ideal listed guy writes all of this in. his diary, right. he's writing about this conversation and that he and mr. pierce had.

and it wasn't even really a conversation. and it sounds as if it reads as if pierce was talking out loud. right. he's like. oh, why are they doing this? oh, why do i have to put up with this right. he's talking to himself. and james seymour severance to be there or he's venting so that severance can hear not thinking anything of it because this guy is young and whatever. so he continues that. well, pierce i'm sorry. seymour severance, they call him seymour up and he says, well, you know, she did a lot in maryland. she helped a lot of people. you know, maybe she could teach these formerly enslaved people about freedom. and pierce continues, oh, no, we can't have any of that. we can't have of that underground. that underground stuff.

she's too radical, you know, she's radical. she's going to the boat. we are. follow ing president lincoln and his gradual approach. right. and dealing at the time with these labor in which the u.s. government was not consistently paying people. so these labor managers having to force people compel people, freed people, formerly enslaved people to work. and so maybe he didn't want harriet tubman to come down into that mix and maybe to tell the freed people that they actually should be paid. right. we don't want her teaching them about freedom. it's a one. it's a it's an i opening letter. okay. so that's one.

another one comes from william lloyd garrison son, george. george who is an officer with. the. 55th massachusetts, and he talks about tubman's role working in the refugee camps. so the port royal shakespeare amid the sea island cotton plantations. these are all in the rural areas of buford and in the sea islands. tubman going to be based downtown in buford. she's based the refugee camps. so if you can imagine that there were in the coastal areas those areas are occupied by the union. as you go into the interior and the rice plantations are in the interior that's that portion of

the lowcountry if you will is still controlled by the confederates. okay. so people once the u.s. army occupies buford and people including the cumbie people who i've talked about are finding any possible to get to buford. if they're inland they're coming on foot. they're also there are lots rivers running through the area, including can be there were people making basket boats and floating in baskets. ten, 20, 30, 40 miles to get to buford. literally risking their lives, building rafts and floating on these with their children and their elders. you know, to get to buford. these people of them are first going are going be taken downtown. and we would call it today.

right there. needs are going to be assessed. people who can would be given work assignments, people who might have actually been from the sea islands going to be taken back to the sea. people who couldn't work are going to be given shelter. clothing, etc. so if in modern sense we would think about this as a refugee situation and historians actually call all of these sort of freedom seekers who are liberating themselves, including from the can be but even before that we today call them refuge ese as opposed to calling them contrabands. so tubman is on the front line in the refugee camps in downtown buford where. people are coming in from confed state controlled territory.

and this letter that's written by george garrison talks how she d the freedom seekers and that's not his language. that's not my language. that's the language of cia, which now studies tubman and the way she gathered intelligence. right. it's coming from the application that was written her to be a full member of the military intelligence hall of fame. so the adding language to it that she did briefed the freedom seekers who coming in from confederate territory. she was able to find out the locations of confederate troops confederate weapons, etc., and then pass this information to the u.s. army. and what george george garrison,

in his letter that, she made it her business to talk to each every freedom seeker who came into camps. and she gathered intelligence than anybody. okay. and. okay. i think we'll move on. this harriet tubman's penchant file. and i'm going to talk more in a minute about the pension files in which she herself describes her role. working for the u.s. department of the south as a spy. and she says that she also a commander of men eight or nine. these men spies, scouts and pilots and. there's new research in the book in i identify three of these men, motley take isaac heyward,

jack burns and their stories and i'll talk in a minute about isaac heyward mott blake actually. was liberated himself in another raid that took place on the santee river. and because of a will of an uncle, two cousins in the same family. blake family had one on the santee and one on the cambie. and when the uncle's will was settled the. the property were split. so some of the cumbie people were taken up to the santee and some of those people liberated themselves in a raid the u.s. army conducted in june of 1862. blake was one of them, came and i'm able to document him because he joins the u.s. colored troops

and he has a pension file came isaac heyward does not i'll talk about in a minute burns does as well and actually excuse me his his son has a pension file and it's one of the doctors, the first south carolina who tells his life story and there's several life stories in the book. all right. i want focus on isaac heyward. i'm going to come back to in a minute. so it was extremely to me to to tell this story as authentically as possible. and there's going to be a number of layers this. i wanted to try to underscore the combahee river raid from the perspective of the freed people, the freedom seekers who liberated themselves. and so the environment and the

rice culture and the low country, you know, coastal wetlands environment was an important part of that. i partnered with a photographer by the name of jay henry fair. henry is environmental and conservation photographer, a climate change activist. he's a cumbie native. and so henry took aerial drone and terrestrial photographs, which are published in the book. and they give us he we took images of sites in the combahee river. so you're going to see a couple of henry's photograph rafts. this one is of the downtown wharf and this is where the combahee river raid in downtown buford. this is a modern view of this

wharf. and it began about 9 p.m. on june first of 1863 and three u.s. army boats took off from this wharf in downtown buford. now, it was a full moon. it was also a spring tide, meaning the spring tide, the full moon, and is the highest tide the highest high tide of the lunar cycle. so that title amply was really important, enabling the army to get these rather large boats up. this very windy kerley river river like it, it was not a panacea. however. they decided to take a risk. kane. now, remember that tubman's

group of eight or nine spies, scouts and pilots are piloting the gunboats. okay. they're piloting the u.s. army up the river and they took a risk as opposed to going the long way around through st helena sound. they went the short way up. the coosa river and the coosa river is the mouth of the coosa is lined with sandbars. now i think they took this risk for a couple of reasons. number one, i think they took it i think it was recommended by isaac heyward, who was one of harriet tubman's spy scouts and pilots who, according to his freedman's bank account, was born on coosa island. he was a boatman in buford.

he also says that he was the son of william c heyward, who was one of the cumbie planters. and he's described biracial. there's a lot of drama on the can be. there's a lot of drama on the can be and you know there there documents that we just had to print because if we didn't print it, you all wouldn't believe it. he said, william heyward was his daddy. okay. he's described as biracial. in first. couple reasons. i think that. heyward. william c heyward. the target of the raid. i think he was the target of the raid. i'm happy to discuss that in question and answer. so in taking this risk, you know, they gain time and time was precious. you know, leaving under the cover of darkness, they need the advantage of darkness. they don't know what's out there. they don't know.

if the confederates are there waiting, pick them off. right on land, probably on land. because the confederate navy was very small. and the confederate army didn't boats like the u.s. army did. but there trying to maintain that advantage. so they did that by going up the coosa river, but they lost one of their boats. the sentinel ran aground and it was a transfer board steamer, meaning that it was one of the boats that they would have used to transport freedom seekers to. so their capacity was reduced by half. and this must been heartbreaking. this must have been heartbreaking to the second south carolina soldiers who were themself slaves, formerly enslaved came. now, as i tried to figure out

how to tell this story authentically, i was able to reenact the raid three times, go the river, three, three separate times by boat, with the sole purpose of reenacting aspects of the raid. and the second time we attempted it during the day, taking the route that was the the u.s. army took, we also ran aground at the mouth of the coosa river using all the modern gadget. it's, you know, broad daylight. you name it. we ran aground. so those are real. all right. so as i mentioned, the raid actually took place under the full moon. it took place during the flood tide. once the sentinel ran aground,

boats, the john adams and the a, we'd continued up the cumbie tubman her men. colonel james might were in lead boat the john adams. and after the sentinel runs aground the men who on that boat are transferred on to the harriet a we'd. in reenacting the cumbie raid on our first trip we at night. so we left at 9:00 at night on a full moon and i learned on this trip was is that the moon shimmers off the water this time and this was the first time no, no lights. we traveled very slowly least 6 to 7 miles per hour, which is the speed that the u.s. army

boats would have traveled. no gadgets. and we literally navigated by the light of the moon and could see that the rice fields and the marsh on side of the shimmering water were just dark, undifferentiated masses. i drove the boat back and. i worked with a group of scientists who kind of concocted all this stuff. i would say, oh, wouldn't it be great if? and they would plan it, right? so, you know, they got the boat, they got the whole thing. they even got the snacks. and we're going up the river. so my friend travis says, okay, you have to drive back. and i'm like, has he lost mind? i have never driven a boat in my life. it is pitch black now. it's like midnight eight.

and we're going. i was like, oh, this is bad. this is not going to be good. but it was it was it was amazing because i learned how to steer the boat right in the combahee river or as you can see and you'll see more of it. wines and it twists and some of these curls almost make an oval right with the two sides of the oval almost touching. so get around those curves. it was just very important. steer in the middle. right. you've got this shimmering, but don't go over to the edge, steer in the middle, because there sandbars on each edge. and if you get too close and of course, you can't see them. you're going to run into a sandbar. okay. so coming up the river, leaving

the coosa. they stop first at fields point, then at tar and let off two companies of the second south carolina of volunteers each in each place and continue on to long brow plantation as they proceed north. leaving fields, they encounter the rice fields. and so now you have rice fields on one side. and the on the other with this shimmering in the middle. one of the second south carolina volunteer captains described seeing, quote, wooly heads, unquote, working hard in the rice fields. it was 4 a.m. came. it was 4:00 in the morning. and to think about the snakes in alligators. the snakes that enslaved people would have encountered to the rice fields, the alligators that

they would have encountered in the rice fields at 4:00 in the morning when. they heard and they smelled. they felt those u.s. army gunboats take their to take them to freedom. so here in this image, what you see in the foreground, on the right, those are rice fields. as you look in the back and you see the curves of the river. but that's the marsh on when that side. so even under the full moon, i can tell you that they could not see their hands in front of their faces. they couldn't see their long handled hose in their hands. they not have seen snakes or alligators nipping at their feet came. so was one freedom seeker.

we know who we know he was and i track him. from the first time he was sold in 1839, up the last time i believe it was 1859 when he and his were sold. we know that 88 year old minus hamilton. was one of the oldest old heads on record to have escaped the prison house of bondage in combahee river raid. and hamilton remembered that an hour or two before what he called in the gullah geechee call day clean. and i'm going to quote here to people was all a hoe and massa there was a hoe in in the rice field the gunboats come. then every man himoe and left the rice. the enslaved laborers stood with their feet and ankles, sunk deep in muck and water between the

multi shade green rows of maturing water from the stretched flow had been drained off before they were sent to hoe. it, but it was impossible to all of the water, so small amounts remained in the fields being underwater water for four weeks to six weeks left the ground swamp b and quicksand like soft stems algae growing between the of rice would have felt prickly under their feet and added to the collage greens after enslaved laborers put their toes in the balls of their feet down on the ground. then their heels sank deep. the swampy muck. there they. the faster they walked, the more they sank down and slipped on the spinach like algae floating in the water. the millpond of sinking muck and

slippery algae would have hindered enslaved laborers running through the rice fields. but once they were able to extricate and their loved ones from the morass east running along the grand --, the combahee river back from the rice fields was, the quickest path to rowboats and lincoln gunboats, according mr. hamilton. the overseer stood in the rice and called to the enslaved hands, working there to run to the woods. hide. he them. the yankees had finally come and would sell them all to cuba. they must immediately run for hide. but. and the enslaved laborers working him dinot feign attachment to the enslaver or obedience to the overseer.

instd they did the opposite of what they were ordered to do. mr. hamilton says every man he run and my god, he run all the other way. the overseer ran to the woods alone from his forested, hiding place. he looked peep back at the enslaved people. he looked peep again. he demanded the enslaved people one last time run for hide the enslaved people over whom the overseer held the power work and tortured to death, utterly disregarded his. every man run by him, and they ran to freedom straight to the boat. one of my proudest research moments was finding mr. hamilton's family and tracking them through the sails.

they were sold two or three times as a family, and then they were in the rice fields together and they got the boat together and. they include his 80. he was 88. his wife, hager, his daughter, a son in law, harry and granddaughter hager hager. he likely consider himself lucky, blessed to live long enough to see black soldiers. to hamilton, these young black. formerly enslaved shaved men were an i quote black soldiers so presumptuous. he speaks a perfect gullah dialect which is recorded by by the u.s. army commander. because these soldiers came to confront enslavement and the enslavers head on, they disembarked the yankee gunboat boats and came right ashore

wearing the u.s. army issue blue coats and loaded muskets. the young, proud black men who had been formerly enslaved like him, stood tall. their proud backs strayed and, quote, held dear. head up, unquote. then they went to work, destroying the manifestations of wealth that can be enslaved hours had starved whipped and exploited the black people they held bondage. i'm going to end on the note of the pension files because part of what drew me to this project in addition to rice were these phenomena documents in which formerly enslaved people testified about their families. they about their marriages.

their labors on these plantations. the birth of their children intimate details. of their lives that historians really haven't been able to access. and some of them about the can be river raid. and so here we see primus barnwell testifying for his sister about his brother in laws service. there were approximate. only 186,000 men, black men fought during the civil war. three fourths of them, about 135,000 were formerly enslaved. these men, like harriet tubman, like her spies, scouts and

pilots, risked their lives for freedom and. they risked their freedom for those who were enslaved. six months on, that can be after the emancipation problem went into effect. i'm going to skip to this photograph, which was published on july 4th, 1863. the image that's above it shows. it's an image of the combahee river raid came and this is gordon in the caption. the first image is gordon. he entered u.s. army life and he's dressed in rags. the second image is gordon under medical inspection, and you can see the whip lacerate oceans on his back. the third image is gordon dressed up as a u.s. soldier.

and historians questioned gordon's identity. was he real? was this all one person? was it three people. i would argue that the 150 men can be men who joined the second south carolina volunteer was the day after the raid. the 135,000 black men who joined the u.s. colored troops that they were all gordon and we can finally know their stories and the stories of their families through the pension files that the south carolina volunteers, which included my third great grandfather here, had taken these men, the combahee river out of the rice fields. it took hose out of their hands. it put muskets in them. and the can be soldiers went on to fight for the freedom of

others. thank you. so sweet. about 15 minutes for your questions. we have an audience watching at home. so if wouldn't mind directing your questions to that mike to this mike over here. good evening. good evening. my name is kim chase. i'm from baltimore. one of the things i wanted to be when i was coming out of high school wanting to be a doctor, but ended up being a history major. but and i've always this stuff, but, you know, i was listening to one thing that you said. you harriet tubman. oh, did get it right. that she was studied by the. mm hmm. so didn't start, obviously,

until 1947, i think. right. right. so so couple questions here. number one, she gathered a lot of intel. mm hmm. how was recorded? somebody there says she was illiterate. how was recorded? and the other is that where did. did the cia use some of her, um, some of her ways of gathering intel and what she did? did the did they use in infuse that, for lack of better terms, in. they do. yeah. so i don't know that we actually know how she communicated the intel to the us army. my hunch is that it was verbally she had very close relationships with, the generals and the colonels of the us army of the

south. there's i in the book about this scene of general david hunter, who was the commander of the department of, the south pouring a glass of water for. tubman. she seated and he's standing in, pouring water for her as if their roles are actually reversed. wow. had very close relationships. it's the kind of thing where she could, you know, walk in the door, tell them anything she wanted to tell them without going through an intermediary. so i would think it was verbal versus written. you know, the recognition the intelligence community is is recent tubman during her lifetime, never recognition as a spy she never received a pension as a spy. she was pensioned because as her second husband was a u.s.

veteran. nelson davis served. right. and they she marries him after the war. he dies and she's able to apply for a widow's pension. she you know, it takes an act of congress after multiple tries for her to get an $8 increase for her work. a nurse. but she was never or paid for her work. a spy. so the community is studying tubman today. they're studying the combahee river today as they look at the history of gathering and looking at. situations of enemy, you know, working with enemy in enemy territory, that kind of thing, but that recognize it does not it doesn't go past. we're talking. the 2001 final thing you said edward l pierce didn't people taught about freedom and so

forth. so when you when you said that and forgot it right there, if you said that, then how much has changed today because because people still have the conversation. yeah, well, he didn't want people he didn't want the refugees learn about tubman. it's of freedom. quite often, the portrayal wanted to dictate what. freedom meant. so you're right it's still the same thing today. not much in that regard has changed so much. thank you. good evening. i'm ryan kinloch. i just have a quick. i am actually from south carolina, from georgetown, south carolina. so am gullah. and this is definitely a story that i never heard. so i appreciate you for bringing this to light. thank you. my pleasure. thank you. and that raid that i talked on the santee river was pretty

close to georgetown. yeah. there's a you know, santee river is like southern georgetown county. yeah. yeah. thank. good evening. my name is delany. i'm a student. morgan state university. my very question. i just wanted to ask what you want to research. harriet tubman so intensely to the point where you found a document was not found or inmates a public eye before? that is a good question. you know, sometimes find the best projects when. you're just minding your business and was minding my business in my rice fields and i was working on two projects one of which was mentioned in the introduction i collaborate a classical music composer by john

by the name of john wineglass, who is from georgetown. his dad's from georgetown and john had won three emmy awards. he is an amazing contemporary classical composer. and i wanted to. it's a long story, but i basically wrote a libretto, a text on his original composition based in the text is based primary sources and the texts are about slavery they're about race, they're about the transatlantic trade, and they're about the middle passage. and in writing that, i was looking for dramatic scenes. the more, the better. and i was to use these scenes to the libretto. and one of the scenes was the combahee river raid. one of the scenes was minus hamilton. his life story. i was working on another project, which i thought was going to be a history of the

gullah gene and these projects were growing exponentially, and they were growing in opposite directions. and the one place where the two intersected was on the combahee river raid. i didn't think that there was anything new to say. tubman's life. i think i could say anything about become b raid. it's not in the military record. and it was really finding the pension files that clued me in to the fact i might actually have something new to say. thank you. i appreciate you. thank you. we're going to take three more questions. whenever here and then two over there. so name is vinny. my name is vinny and maryland from baltimore. and so maybe you cover this and i just it. but what was the purpose? the raid? i mean, i don't think that i don't think that it was just sort of like i don't think the civil war is just to free as many slaves as possible. so was it a strategic move? like, was was that area

something that the u.s., you know navy or military needed and? this freeing of the slaves was just sort of secondary or along the way. was it sort of the just like punch in the mouth be like, yeah, we can come up river and steal all your slaves. like we got you? or what was the real purpose behind deciding to at that point? yeah, a great question. so james montgomery, who was commander of the raid, writes one paragraph and this is only thing that is in the union that the union writes about the raid came and it's not even in the official military record. and in that one paragraph, colonel james says that the of the raid, number one, is destroy a pontoon bridge that is at be ferry. let's take a look a picture of it. okay. so this would have been a bridge and a bridge that was made out

of boats, a wooden bridge to burn that down that the confederates can't cross. okay. that was one. the other is to. soldiers for the second south carolina. he's to fill his regiment. and so the 150 men who enlist are formed into two companies. so by both regard, the raid was was very successful. hello. hi i'm mary broadwater. i'm from columbia south carolina and i know a lot this kind of stuff only from my dad. and a couple questions. one was, i think you mentioned this being one of the biggest raids. did you know about the denmark? yes. yes. i didn't see that. but how many people were freed? denmark, this raid. that's the thing. how many people survived that

part? i just know that it was like a huge thing, that it was sort of like having an individual who was ready to help free all the slaves. and then we had dissension. basically, people who were when i think the flag was supposed to be upside down or something. and someone from the big house, i guess told me. yeah. was going to happen that day. and it didn't happen. so i to ask about that. and the second thing is you asked us to follow on william c hayward and being the total. yes, yes. yes. so i think that william c hayward is the target number one. he was one of the commanders of the confederate army during the battle of port royal. he was a commander of one of the forts and. and you have isaac who says was

his daddy. i'm able to track a freedom seeker from the can be his name is friday barrington. friday barrington after the battle of royal. he went to buford. he was with colonel montgomery before the second south carolina organized. he then enlists and. goes back during the b raid. his mother, his father, his sister her and maybe i think his brother in law are still in bondage. so he goes back to free his. and lastly, in the pension files, when the seekers are testifying, the raid their there is one particular lady, peggy moultrie brown. there we go. peggy moultrie brown who that they took the government boat right up to william c boat

landing and they parked it and all of williams hayward slaves got on. the. that's what i'm talking about. they came for him and they the us army and navy did that. they called him notorious rebels and they were, oh, let's go up that river and blow that notorious rabble out of there. right. it happened on the santee with arthur blake. it happened to his cousin walter on the can be. but they came. william c hayward. one quick question. i'm sorry. there's pension files. is that was that prior to what was later known as the works public administration? is that completely. that's it's separate. definitely. he starts before. although pension files are ongoing. right so all veterans veterans today are eligible for pensions. it's the same a similar kind of

in there are now stories in the pension files. i was just curious about that in terms of like the work public administration or stories of the of the previously enslaved people. so. yes. so the the interviews those people are are formerly enslaved. they're also the children of enslaved people in of the people who are interviewed were actually children during bondage. there's a lot of, you know, historians talk about how accurate they are and the fact that these are usually destitute african-americans who are dependent on government benefits, who are being interviewed for the most part by white and how that a barrier. when i make similar critiques of the pension files right these are government officials these

are people who are trying to get benefits and. i talk in the book about there are places where people stretch the truth like were you legally married? that's a time to stretch the truth. did you marry this man after that one died or you left that and went and took up with this when did you all get married? people lie about that all the time. people don't lie about the raid. i see why they would lie about the raid. and i don't know why they would lie about the names of their family members, you know, and the relationship they have with their siblings and their and, you know, and it's that kind of information i use to reconstruct the enslaved community on lower cumbie. so i think they are as valuable as. the wpa interviews and narratives for us to the history of to to reconsider the history of slavery. we have time for one more

question. my name is maya hasten. i'm also a student at, morgan. and my question was, i know you researched very intensely why harriet tubman. you ended up coming across the that had like a lot of information. i just wanted to know if there had been with any other figures we might know of and. if so, like who? yeah. if you had that research, you know, think. i, certainly think it happens. and i think that most historians are looking for we're looking for the smoking gun. we don't always find it. we don't usually find it. but we're looking, you know, looking for those document that other people haven't looked at. and one of the things that i've done in my career in west africa, in, you know, antebellum carolina is i want find the

voices of black people. people on the african continent. people in the diaspora. people who didn't write diaries. they didn't write journals. they didn't leave papers. these people often been written out of history. so i'm always looking for it's like i have to go through the back door. i have to find another way because those people's stories to be told, you know, whether it's using interdisciplinary sources or whether it's using in this case it's a source that's written for another purpose. right. or it's minus hamilton telling his story. and it's recorded by this u.s. army commander. i'm always looking for sources where. our people are telling our

stories. now i have colleagues who call this history from the bottom up. i call it history by any means necessary. thank you. thank you.