Harriet Tubman nursed wounded and sick Union soldiers during the Civil War, primarily Black troops from regiments like the 54th Massachusetts Infantry and the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers, as well as formerly enslaved people who flooded into Union refugee camps. She treated both Black and white soldiers, though her nursing work centered on the segregated facilities where Black troops and freed people received care in the Sea Islands of South Carolina.
Black Troops of the 54th Massachusetts
Tubman’s most documented nursing work involved the survivors of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, one of the first Black regiments in the Union Army. After the regiment’s devastating assault on Fort Wagner in July 1863, wounded white officers were sent to a field hospital at Hilton Head, where Clara Barton greeted them. The Black rank and file were sent instead to Beaufort, South Carolina, where they entered Tubman’s care.
Tubman had already crossed paths with the 54th Massachusetts weeks earlier, around the time of the Combahee River Raid in June 1863. She later claimed she served the regiment’s commander, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, his last meal before the Fort Wagner assault, where he was killed. After the battle, the regiment’s survivors became some of her most notable patients.
The 2nd South Carolina Volunteers
Tubman worked closely with the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers, a regiment of formerly enslaved men commanded by Colonel James Montgomery. This was the unit she accompanied on the Combahee River Raid, which freed over 700 enslaved people from rice plantations along the river. As the first woman to lead an armed raid during the war, Tubman served as both scout and guide for the operation. The soldiers in this regiment, many of whom had themselves escaped slavery, were among those she regularly supported with meals, nursing, and other care throughout her time in the Sea Islands.
Freed People in Contraband Camps
A significant portion of Tubman’s patients were not soldiers at all but formerly enslaved people, referred to by the Union Army as “contraband.” Hundreds of refugees poured into camps at Beaufort, Hilton Head, Otter Island, and Bay Point. These people arrived sick, malnourished, and often carrying diseases that spread quickly in crowded conditions.
In Beaufort, the Union Army established a contraband hospital in the former home of B.B. Sams, on the corner of Craven and New Streets. Tubman provided aid to Black refugees on the grounds of this facility. A separate location, Bell Farm, served as the contraband smallpox hospital, where disease was rampant and deadly. Tubman moved between these sites and the military hospital, working under the direction of Dr. Henry K. Durrant.
What She Treated and How
The soldiers and refugees Tubman cared for suffered from battle wounds, but also from epidemic diseases that killed far more Civil War soldiers than combat did. Malignant fever (likely typhoid or malaria) and smallpox were among the most dangerous. Standard medical supplies were scarce, particularly in the segregated facilities serving Black patients.
Tubman drew on herbal medicine she had learned from her mother, knowledge rooted in African American healing traditions passed down through generations of enslaved people. She gathered cranesbill and lily roots growing near the hospitals and made remedies from them. These plant-based treatments were reportedly effective enough to cure soldiers of fevers and smallpox when conventional medicine fell short. Her ability to treat patients with locally available plants made her especially valuable in an environment where supply lines to Black hospitals were an afterthought.
No Individual Names Survive
Despite Tubman’s years of service, no records name individual soldiers she treated. Civil War medical record-keeping for Black troops was far less thorough than for white soldiers, and Tubman herself was illiterate, leaving no written account in her own hand. What survives comes from pension applications, congressional testimony, and third-party accounts.
After the war, Tubman applied for a federal pension based on her service as a nurse, cook, and spy. Congressional records from 1898 and 1899 include a bill formally describing her as “late a nurse in the U.S. Army,” and letters from advocates like Representative Sereno E. Payne supported her claim. The pension process was slow and difficult, reflecting how little official recognition her work received during her lifetime. Her nursing role, like so much of the labor performed by Black women during the war, was largely treated as invisible by the institutions she served.
Where and When She Served
Tubman arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina, in May 1862 after being recruited by Massachusetts Governor John A. Andrew for humanitarian work in the Port Royal area. She assumed duties under General William T. Sherman and remained in the region through 1865. Her work spanned contraband camps, the contraband hospital, and military hospitals in and around Beaufort. She was also hired to provide nursing services to wounded soldiers at Fortress Monroe in Hampton, Virginia, expanding her care beyond the Sea Islands.
Her daily routine shifted between roles. By day she worked as a nurse. She also ran a kitchen where she prepared meals for soldiers and refugees, and she taught newly freed people practical skills. The nursing was not a separate chapter of her war service but woven into everything she did, from feeding the 54th Massachusetts to gathering roots outside a smallpox ward.