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Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom during the Civil War Audiobook
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The story of the Combahee River Raid, one of Harriet Tubman's most extraordinary accomplishments, based on original documents and written by a descendant of one of the participants
Edda L. Fields-Black shows how Tubman commanded a ring of spies, scouts, and pilots and participated in military expeditions behind Confederate lines. On June 2, 1863, Tubman and her crew piloted two regiments of Black US Army soldiers, the Second South Carolina Volunteers, and their white commanders up coastal South Carolina's Combahee River in three gunboats. In a matter of hours, they torched eight rice plantations and liberated 730 people.
Using previously unexamined documents, Fields-Black brings to life intergenerational, extended enslaved families, neighbors, praise-house members, and sweethearts forced to work in South Carolina's deadly tidal rice swamps, sold, and separated during the antebellum period. When Tubman and the gunboats arrived and blew their steam whistles, many of those people clambered aboard, sailed to freedom, and were eventually reunited with their families. The able-bodied Black men freed in the Combahee River Raid enlisted in the Second South Carolina Volunteers and fought behind Confederate lines for the freedom of others still enslaved not just in South Carolina but Georgia and Florida.
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“Machelle Williams delivers this sweeping, detailed history of Harriet Tubman’s work with a consistent, engaging voice that doesn’t waver…A deep dive into the history of the Civil War and Tubman’s historical leadership. Williams’s performance matches the intent of this historical work: to be clear, balanced, yet moving. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile
Quotes
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“Remarkable new history.”
— New Republic -
“This is a marvel of deep research.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review) -
“With an extensive cast of characters, dramatic action, and findings of great significance, Combee is an exceptional work of American history
— Booklist (starred review) -
“Readers will gain a deeper understanding of that era’s times and experiences, and Fields Black’s connection to one of the participants makes it a personal work as well.”
— Library Journal (starred review) -
“Through herculean research and cross-referencing of land, bank, US Army pension, and slavery transaction records, Fields-Black is able to name names and offer readers a sense of who these people were and what their lives were like.”
— BookPage
Awards
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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for History
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A Booklist Top 10 Books of the Year in History
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
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Winner of the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize
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Finalist for the Mark Lynton History Prize
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A James A. Rawley Prize Honorable Mention
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Finalist for the ASALF Book Prize
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About Edda L. Fields-Black
Dr. Edda L. Fields-Black teaches history at Carnegie Mellon University and has written extensively about the history of West African rice farmers. She was a co-editor of Rice: Global Networks and New Histories, which was selected as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. She has served as a consultant for the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture’s permanent exhibit, “Rice Fields of the Lowcountry.” She is the executive producer and librettist of “Unburied, Unmourned, Unmarked: Requiem for Rice,” a widely performed original contemporary classical work by celebrated composer John Wineglass. She is a descendent of Africans enslaved on rice plantations in Colleton County, South Carolina; her great-great-great grandfather fought in the Combahee River Raid in June 1863. Her determination to illuminate the riches of the Gullah dialect and to reclaim Gullah Geechee history and culture has taken her to the rice fields of South Carolina and Georgia and to those of Sierra Leone and Republic of Guinea in West Africa
About Machelle Williams
Gustavo Rex is an actor known for his narration of the video games Call of Duty: Black Ops and Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. He has also narrated several audiobooks including Carlos Santana’s memoir, El Tono Universal.