The Tubman Command

by Elizabeth Cobbs

  Yet the scene was also oddly normal. Samuel dozed while she worked on a simple task, just like any woman with her man on a Sunday morning. Free people did it all the time without thinking about it—married couples who didn’t have to live on the run, who knew the vows they made could be kept. What God has joined together let no man put asunder instead of, ’til distance do you part, as the preacher told her and John. Harriet rested her needle and closed her eyes. Lord Almighty, hear my prayer, she told Him, knowing His capacity for generosity.

  A donkey brayed outside, and Harriet opened her eyes. A moment later, a cart rolled by, soon followed by the stamp of soldiers. She wondered what had happened to Walter. They must find him. Harriet poked her needle into the unattached sleeve and set it aside. “Samuel, wake up,” she said, rising to shake his arm.

  He opened his eyes halfway, then rolled onto his back and yawned. “Already?” He pointed at his bandage. “How’s it look?”

  Harriet sat beside him to examine the dressing. The bloodstain was brown. “Looks good,” she said. “How you feeling?”

  He reached up and stroked her cheek. “Ready for anything,” he said with a mischievous smile.

  She took his hand and placed it on the bed. “I need to see if Walter’s turned up. I’m hoping he rowed back on the tide.”

  Samuel grew serious. His hand curled over hers. “’Clare to God, I don’t know where he could a hid.”

  Harriet didn’t either, not with the wide, exposed rice fields, but she wouldn’t say so. Putting fear into words tempted fate. Samuel’s anxiety for Walter must be compounded by worry for his children, and he didn’t even know about his brother. The news would hold awhile longer, until she got back from the dock. But she did need to know what he’d found on the Combahee. Harriet felt a rush of impatience. “Tell me bout that last torpedo,” she said. “Can you pinpoint it on Montgomery’s map?”

  He nodded. “Yes, but it won’t be hard to spot neither. A stand a tupelos grows near the ferry landing. Both barrels are right there, on either side a the Cum’bee. The current is fast on that stretch, so if a pilot don’t know better, he gone hug the inside bend. Can’t do that.”

  “Not without getting blown up?”

  “Not without getting blown to heck and gone.” Samuel let go of her hand and sat up in bed. “I’ll come with you to look for Walter.”

  “No need for you to get up. I can scout the situation pretty quick.”

  Samuel’s jaw squared and he acquired a mulish look. “So can I.”

  “You ought get some rest. That wound still—”

  “I’m rested plenty,” he said.

  Harriet sensed the arrival of an argument she’d rather avoid. No good came of stepping on a man’s pride. “That decision’s yours,” she said, “but I hope you gone think on it. We need your help tomorrow to show us which tupelos you mean. I’d hate Montgomery to mix em up.”

  “I’m feeling fine,” he said.

  Harriet stood up. “Let’s change that dressing then.” She got the discarded sleeve from the chair. “I ain’t got any more clean linen, but we can reuse this. The hospital has fresh bandages, but that’s across town, and I’m not sure you can make it there without the bleeding starting up.”

  Samuel’s eyes narrowed. “You told me a minute ago that my noggin looks okay. This one a your tricks, Hattie?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m giving it to you straight. The wound might open up if you walk around in the hot sun. It’s up to you.”

  Samuel scooted down on the mattress. He folded his arms under his head and stretched out his legs. “I think I been out-generaled, General Tubman. Promise me you’ll stop by the contraband hospital for a clean bandage?”

  Harriet returned the sleeve to the chair. Relieved, she leaned over to kiss his forehead. “Yes, soldier, I will. So long as you promise to rest.”

  The morning was already hot. At the Union dock, a third gunship floated alongside the two paddle wheelers Harriet had seen before. Busy crews now swarmed the triple-deckers that once took families across the Hudson or traders down the Susquehanna. A line of men toted bundles of firewood for the boilers. Colored machinists with oilcans inspected the giant side-wheels. Yankee gunners from the 3rd Rhode Island Heavy Artillery positioned and sighted the guns on the upper decks. Officers carrying charts traipsed in and out of the tiny pilothouses while the Stars and Stripes flapped boldly from the jack staffs at the bow of each ship. The repurposed ferries looked like layer cakes with their flat decks and white railings.

  Goosebumps swept Harriet’s arms. The steamers that once delivered passengers on northern rivers were the most glorious sight she’d ever seen: a fleet to rescue Israelites from the land of bondage. They rose like a biblical armada. She felt sure no one had ever before launched a navy against slavery. Harriet noticed a painter touching up the gold letters on the bow of the middle gunboat, the smallest of the three, and felt she must learn their names. If all went well, she would teach them to Margaret one day. They would recite them like the names of the Apostles. And Samuel was right. She must tell her daughter the truth at last.

  A white man walking down the dock stopped to tie his shoe.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Harriet said. “I don’t know my letters. Can you please tell me the names a these ships?”

  The man stood and shaded his eyes to peer down the long wharf. “The first one, she’s the John Adams,” he said. “The one in the middle is the Harriet Weed.”

  “The Harriet?” she said, delighted. She wondered how the ship had gotten its name.

  “The Harriet Weed,” he corrected her. The man paused and squinted. “The one at the far end, I believe that’s the Sentinel.”

  “Where they headed?” Harriet asked.

  “Florida, I hear,” the man said, and lifted his hat without a trace of the casual venom she sometimes encountered from white Northerners, with whom she’d found little middle ground between friend and foe. He continued on his way without further comment.

  Harriet smiled to herself—their final destination still remained a secret—but an instant later frowned with alarm. Sergeant Prince Rivers, Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s right-hand man, stood next to a crate of ammunition on the dock. Why was he there? Had Colonel Montgomery been pulled off the raid? General Hunter had promised her the Kansan, and here instead was Higginson’s assistant.

  Consulting a sheaf of notes, Sergeant Rivers spoke with two infantrymen who nodded at whatever he was saying. A moment later, the soldiers took either end of the crate and hauled it onto the Harriet Weed, disappearing into the hold.

  Harriet strode down the dock before the imposing officer could follow his men. “Sergeant!”

  Sergeant Rivers glanced at her as she approached and then back at his manifest. “Miz Tubman. How may I help you?” He took a pencil from his top pocket and crossed something off.

  “You preparing to get underway?”

  He grimaced but didn’t look up as he crossed off another item. “Yes, that’s why we’re putting supplies on the ship. It’s the general procedure.”

  Harriet ignored his sarcasm. She was ready to forgive outright rudeness from officers under pressure. But she needed to know whether command had been transferred. What in the world was General Hunter up to? Colonel Montgomery would be livid. She felt her dander rise. No way should Higginson—a just man, a kind man, and the wrong man—lead the expedition.

  “I see you’re busy,” she said, sustaining a pleasant tone with effort. “Colonel Higginson around?”

  The colored officer glanced up from his tablet. His lean frame radiated impatience. “No, he’s back at camp.”

  “You expect him anytime soon?”

  “No idea,” he said.

  “Colonel Higginson directing the work from camp?”

  “Nope,” Rivers said and turned away abruptly.

  She could have hit him over the head with her satchel for his brusque answers. Instead, she stepped in front to cut him off. “You in charge,
then, Sergeant Rivers?”

  The tall sergeant glared down. “Ma’am, if you want a senior officer, you need to address Colonel Montgomery. I’ve been loaned to the 2nd South Carolina for the day. They’re on their way to Florida.” He flicked a thumb toward the ship at the end of the wharf. “I believe he’s on the Sentinel.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Harriet said, and she continued down the dock. Sergeant Rivers apparently didn’t know that the fleet’s destination was a ruse—or was sticking to the official story. Either way, Colonel Montgomery remained in charge. Thank you, Lord, she thought.

  A wide gangplank at the end of the wharf led onto the Sentinel. Harriet followed two muscular men pushing wheelbarrows filled with iron ballast up the walkway and onto the main deck. Colonel Montgomery stood a short distance away in conversation with the ship’s captain, who frowned and shook his head. Montgomery noticed her approach and motioned her over. The captain signaled the stevedores to follow and disappeared into the engine room.

  “Morning, Colonel,” Harriet said.

  Montgomery lifted his hat and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. “What’s your report?” he said, ignoring any preliminaries. “Did you accomplish the mission?”

  “Yes, sir, in part.”

  “Which part?”

  “Heyward confirmed the two torpedoes nearest the ferry, and we got onto the Lowndes and Nichols Plantations. But we—we lost touch with Walter Plowden, sir.” Harriet forced herself to say the terrible words, which felt much like burying her friend. “He never come back.”

  Montgomery shook his head. “Plowden rowed in this morning. Looked a sight. I guess he hid in a pigsty. Said he found the woman he needed to see but was delayed and missed the tide. One of the sutlers took him back to camp a few minutes ago.”

  A lump rose in her throat. “Lordy,” she said. “Thank Jesus, he safe!”

  The memory flashed upon her of the day she’d crawled into a pigpen to escape the whip. Still a child, she’d been terrified that the immense animals would crush her, and their putrid offal stayed under her fingernails for a week. But the hogs had accepted her, and now they’d saved Walter, too.

  “Amen.” Montgomery cast a troubled glance around him. “Now we need to pray for this ship.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Captain says she can’t keep her head. Lists in a storm. I’m bringing extra ballast on board, but the draught is too deep as well. She draws nine feet, and the Combahee permits only ten at high tide. We’ll have to drop the ballast at the bar in order to cross into the river, and count on the weight of the contraband to steady the ship on the way home.”

  Harriet considered the list of problems. “Sounds like a fair plan.”

  “You’d think so. But the captain isn’t confident we should take her out at all. Says the boat needs a thorough refitting. These are all patches.”

  “What you think, sir?” she asked. Harriet wanted to tell him the answer, but he needed to ask the question. As always, he’d listen better.

  Colonel Montgomery paused. His unshaven jaw flexed. “I think we have to risk it,” he said. “What about you? You’ve been up the Combahee.”

  “There must be three, four thousand slaves on that sorry river. Each plantation has five hundred or more.”

  “We can’t rescue them all.”

  Harriet nodded in agreement. Some estates were set too far back to raid easily. Others lay upriver, beyond the ferry landing. “How many folk can we take with three boats?” she asked.

  Montgomery heaved a sigh. “With three ships, maybe a thousand. We also have to fit the men of the 2nd Carolina, plus the gun crews from the 3rd Rhode Island.”

  Harriet’s eyes widened. Towering above the wharf, the boats seemed so large. “That all? Can we get more ships?”

  “No. I had to beg for the Sentinel. The navy is still refitting after the disaster in Charleston. They don’t want to risk more gunboats.” Montgomery pulled his hat farther down over his brow, as if to hide his disappointment. “This is it.”

  Dismay filled Harriet. So many would be left behind. They always were. But this was the first battle, she reminded herself, and they would free a thousand in a day. Charleston was next. “Then we got to take the Sentinel, even if she ain’t tip-top,” she said. “Do we need so many Rhode Islanders?”

  “Those Rhode Islanders are the ones who are going to get us home if Rebel artillery shows up,” Montgomery said. “If the Secesh haul their field pieces down Stokes Road, and our men can’t bay them, the Rebels will blow a hole in these boats and sink us all.”

  “Them Yankees ready to fight alongside colored troops?”

  “Some are the very ones that Higginson’s troops pulled off the George Washington,” he said. “They feel they owe us.”

  Harriet nodded in recognition. The Confederates had sunk a Yankee gunship in the marsh off Port Royal the month before. Black troops had rescued Rhode Islander gunners from the burning wreck. The Rebels picked off seven, but more would have been lost if the colored troops hadn’t rushed to help.

  “But our men gone take the fight ashore, right?” Harriet asked. She knew she sounded defensive, but slaveholders pretended black people didn’t care for freedom. Didn’t even want it. That slaves thanked them morning, noon, and night. Colored troops would show the world otherwise.

  “Yes. But don’t forget the risk those Yankees are taking. We need every last one of them.”

  “I won’t, sir. They John Brown’s sons.”

  “Pray for them, then. Pray we all make it over the bar and back.”

  Harriet walked home from the contraband hospital with her satchel stuffed with bandages for Samuel and others who might need them on the morrow. For the first time in months, all she had to consider was how to spend a Sunday. Her steps quickened as she neared the boarding house. They could enjoy the Sabbath like a regular couple. Perhaps Samuel could read to her from his pocket Bible, since he wasn’t well enough to go to church. First, she would tell him about Jacob, and then they would pray together.

  A limp curtain twitched in a sidelight of the front entrance. Ruby Savan’s nose was an inch from the pane. Ringlets hung on either side of her sallow face.

  “Morning, Miz Tubman,” the landlady said as she opened the front door.

  Harriet knew she should inquire after the woman’s health, but she had no patience. “Morning, Miz Savan.”

  “That man still in your room?”

  “I’m bringing him bandages now,” she said. “He’ll be gone tomorrow, ma’am.”

  “Make sure of that,” the landlady said. “I have a respectable name, my daddy’s name—”

  “Yes, ma’am, so everyone say,” Harriet agreed. “I better change that dressing right away.”

  Harriet moved quickly down the hallway. She dreaded telling Samuel about Jacob but couldn’t wait to report that Walter had made it back safe.

  She pushed open the door, which stood slightly ajar. A wave of heat swept her face. The man with two women on a string had disappeared once again. “Fine,” she told the empty room, and she slammed the door with a bang so loud that glass rattled in the window. “That’s jest fine.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Let us examine together the Word of God, and then you will know what has moved me to sacrifice property and friendship, and home and reputation. With Christian patience and Christian love, give me your attention to the end of this letter, whilst I endeavor to show you that the Holy God disapproves American slavery.

  William Brisbane, Abolitionist

  WHEN HARRIET ENTERED THE DISPENSARY, HENRY Durant looked up from his desk, puzzled. “I thought you’d left,” he said.

  “I did. But I found myself with time on my hands. Figured I’d come back,” she said.

  “Don’t you want to rest on the Lord’s Day? Or go to church?”

  Harriet shook her head. “Tell you the truth, doc, don’t think I could sit still. Thought I’d praise the Lord by tending His
flock, if you can use me.”

  “Always,” he replied.

  “Then I’ll fetch up a broom, sir,” she said and continued to the supply cabinet for a clean apron. She needed something to take her mind off Samuel Heyward. She’d sworn twelve years earlier never again to let a man get under her skin.

  A nurse feeding a patient near the door gestured to the far corner when Harriet entered the ward. “Would you start over there? I don’t want that dust flying up into my soup,” the woman said.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Harriet replied. She walked to the far side of the large room where an old white man, seated between two cots with his head bent over a book, read to patients. Harriet began her chores in the opposite corner. She saw only the floor as she swept and did not realize that the reader was Preacher William Brisbane until she overheard the slurry accent of South Carolina aristocracy.

  “Yes, sister,” the Beaufort native explained, “that’s exactly what Saint Paul meant. ‘For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.’”

  To Brisbane’s right lay the sightless old patient who usually asked Harriet for water. She didn’t know if the one-legged man just wanted attention, but she always fetched him a cup anyway.

  “What he say bout de Buckra, preacher?” Romulus asked, his head turned blindly toward Brisbane. “What Saint Paul say to de Galatians bout dem?”

  The former plantation owner looked over his reading glasses at the contraband who might have been born on Port Royal the same year as himself. Both men had gray beards and frayed collars. “They must mend their ways, every one of them, and stand firm against greed and false counsel,” Brisbane said.

  “De Buckra change?” a woman said from her pallet on the floor. She was young, about twenty, with close-cropped hair and a weary, dead expression, as if all inner light had gone out long before. “Dat ain’t possible.”