On June 1-2, 1863, a Federal force consisting of elements of the 2nd S.C. Volunteer Infantry, an African-American unit, and the 3rd Rhode Island Artillery conducted a raid up the Confederate-held Combahee River under Col. James Montgomery, with Harriet Tubman accompanying the expedition. Union gunboats landed 300 soldiers along the river, and one force came ashore at Combahee Ferry. The soldiers took livestock and supplies and destroyed houses, barns, and rice at nearby plantations. More than 700 enslaved men, women, and children were taken to freedom in perhaps the largest emancipation event in wartime S.C., and some freedmen soon enlisted in the U.S. Army.