Continuing from yesterday.
From Wikipedia.
After Beaufort County was mostly taken over by the Union Army, most plantation owners fled and thousands of slaves ended up free. Several regiments were organized from them, including the 2nd SC Infantry under Col. James Montgomery, a Kansas Jayhawker who had been in many clashes with pro-slavery groups during Bleeding Kansas.
He later led a raid on Darien, Georgia, which he ordered to be looted and burned even though it wasn't defended and had offered no resistance. Col. Shaw of the 54th Massachusetts as featured in the movie "Glory" condemned the action. He later wrote that Montgomery's reason "that the Southerners must be made to feel that this was a real war, and that they were to be swept away by the hand of God, like the Jews of old" was a "satanic action." Col. Montgomery definitely did not come off very well in his depiction in the movie "Glory."
Following the war, Darien was rebuilt with some of the funds coming from Robert Gould Shaw's family.
THE ACTION
On June 1, 1863, three Navy ships: the Sentinel, Harriet A. Weed, and the John Adam left Beaufort headed for the Combahee. Three hundred men of the 2nd SC and Co. C of the 3rd Rhode Island Artillery accompanied were on the ships as was Harriet Tubman.
To Be Continued. --Old B-R
The Sentinel ran aground and the two remaining ships arrived at the mouth of the river and landed a small detachment.
The Battle of Fort Fisher, N.C.
