This was a fascinating look at two things I knew nothing about: Harriet Tubman’s work with the Union Army in the Combahee River Raid， and her involvement in something called The Port Royal Experiment。 The latter was an effort by the union to occupy plantations around the Port Royal area and redistribute the land on those plantations to freed African-American laborers。 （Sadly， much of the plantation lands wound up being returned to plantation owners after the war and after Lincoln’s assassination This was a fascinating look at two things I knew nothing about: Harriet Tubman’s work with the Union Army in the Combahee River Raid， and her involvement in something called The Port Royal Experiment。 The latter was an effort by the union to occupy plantations around the Port Royal area and redistribute the land on those plantations to freed African-American laborers。 （Sadly， much of the plantation lands wound up being returned to plantation owners after the war and after Lincoln’s assassination。）This is a long and very scholarly work， with lots of footnotes and appendixes， so the reading did get a little bit dry at times。 However， I learned so many fascinating things from this book—the vast difference between the culture and languages of enslaved Blacks in Maryland versus those in South Carolina; a more in-depth look at abolitionists like John Brown and William Garrison; the story of the prosperous free African-American Forten family in Pennsylvania and the work of Charlotte Forten， who acted as a teacher to many of the freed laborers and their children in the Port Royal Experiment。 And last but not least， I learned that Harriet Tubman was even more amazing and fearless than I’d already believed。 What a fascinating and too little known chapter of American history！ 。。。more