Pulitzer Prize History Winner
Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War
by Edda L. Fields-Black
Summary
Edda L. Fields-Black reconstructs the 1863 Combahee River raid, the Civil War operation Harriet Tubman helped lead that freed more than seven hundred enslaved people in South Carolina. Drawing on pension files, rice plantation records, and the histories of the Gullah Geechee community, she restores the names and lives of the people who escaped. The book offers the most detailed account yet of Tubman's role as a military leader and the freedom seekers who joined the Union effort.
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Historical Context & Significance
The book shared the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for History and centers on the Combahee River raid of June 1863, the only American military operation planned and led in part by a woman during the Civil War.