Edda Fields-Black

Right.

They become contrabands of war.

So the U.S.

Army begins to employ people who were able to work and house and feed and take care of people who couldn't.

So it's in this context that hundreds of northern abolitionists come down.

And this is what's stunning to me is this is South Carolina.

Yeah.

Well, I like to say it's the belly of the beast.

It's sort of an oasis, but I'm sure it felt very tenuous just because the proximity of the Confederacy.

There's no buffer.

There's no border.

There's no barrier.

It's right there.

And Harriet Tubman comes down in this context.

Technically, she's a northern volunteer, but she comes down to serve as a spy.

This is what Harriet Tubman did.

So we know that she was in downtown Beaufort working in the refugee camps.

So as the freedom seekers came from the Confederate plantation, she was there to talk to them and find out what they knew.

And they had a lot of information that the union wanted and that could be beneficial to the union.

Whether it was building fortifications, moving and hauling armaments, serving Confederate troops, and individuals, especially officers, brought their slaves with them to camp.