Qualla: Raid on Combahee Ferry

Raid on Combahee Ferry: Introduction

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Three small ships slipped out of Beaufort harbor on the evening of June 1, 1863, heading for the Combahee River. Aboard were 300 soldiers of the 2nd South Carolina Infantry -- all of them formerly enslaved men -- along with Colonel James Montgomery, a Kansas guerrilla fighter turned Union officer. And standing among them was Harriet Tubman, the most famous conductor of the Underground Railroad, now serving as a scout and intelligence operative for the Union Army. She had spent months gathering information from networks of enslaved people along the river. She knew where the Confederate torpedoes lay hidden beneath the water. She knew which plantations held the most people. She knew the tides.

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Raid on Combahee Ferry: Up the River at Three in the Morning

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Sentinel ran aground in St. Helena Sound almost immediately, leaving only the Harriet A. Weed and the John Adams to continue. Around three o'clock in the morning of June 2, the two ships reached the mouth of the Combahee at Fields Point. Montgomery landed a detachment that dr...

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Raid on Combahee Ferry: Plantations in Flames

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

As the John Adams steamed upriver toward Combahee Ferry, mounted Confederates fled across a pontoon bridge. Union troops set the bridge ablaze, then fanned out along both banks. Captain Brayton marched to the Middleton plantation with orders to confiscate everything of value and ...

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Raid on Combahee Ferry: Seven Hundred and Fifty

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The enslaved people working the rice fields had never heard of the Emancipation Proclamation. When they first spotted the Union ships, they were wary. But word spread fast. Within hours, hundreds of men, women, and children ran for the riverbank, desperate to board. The small boa...

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Raid on Combahee Ferry: What the Raid Proved

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The Combahee Ferry raid demonstrated two things the Union needed to believe. First, that Black soldiers could fight effectively in combat -- a question that prejudice had kept open despite all evidence. Second, that Harriet Tubman was not merely a symbol of resistance but a milit...

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