Robert Smalls
Robert Smalls was an American Republican politician who was born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina. During the American Civil War, the still enslaved Smalls commandeered a Confederate transport ship in Charleston Harbor and sailed it from the Confederate-controlled waters of the harbor to the U.S. blockade that surrounded it. He then piloted the ship to the Union-controlled enclave in Beaufort–Port Royal–Hilton Head area, where it became a Union warship. In the process, he freed himself, his crew, and their families. His example and persuasion helped convince President Abraham Lincoln to accept African-American soldiers into the Union Army.
After the Civil War, Smalls returned to Beaufort and became a politician, winning election as a Republican to the South Carolina Legislature and the United States House of Representatives during the Reconstruction era. He authored state legislation providing for South Carolina to have the first free and compulsory public school system in the United States. He was a founder of the Republican Party of South Carolina and the last member of that party to represent South Carolina's 5th congressional district until the election of Mick Mulvaney in 2010.
Early life
Robert Smalls was born on April 5, 1839, in Beaufort, South Carolina, to Lydia Polite, a woman enslaved by Henry McKee. She gave birth to him in a cabin behind McKee's house, at 511 Prince Street in Beaufort, South Carolina. He grew up in the city under the influence of the Lowcountry Gullah culture of his mother. His mother lived as a servant in the house, but she had grown up working in the fields. Smalls was favored by McKee over other enslaved people, so his mother worried that he might grow up not understanding the plight of enslaved field workers, and she asked for him to be made to work in the fields and to witness whippings.When he was 12, at the request of his mother, Smalls's master sent him to Charleston to hire out as a laborer for sixteen dollars a week, of which he was allowed to keep one dollar, the rest of the wage being paid to his master. Smalls first worked in a hotel, then became a street lamplighter. In his teen years, his love of the sea led him to find work on Charleston's docks and wharves. Smalls worked as a longshoreman, rigger and sailmaker, and he eventually worked his way up to become a wheelman, more or less a helmsman, though enslaved people were not permitted that title. As a result, he was very knowledgeable about Charleston Harbor.
At age 17, Smalls married Hannah Jones, an enslaved hotel maid, in Charleston on December 24, 1856. She was five years older than he was, and she already had two daughters. Their own first child, Elizabeth Lydia Smalls, was born in February 1858. Three years later, they had a son, Robert Jr., who died at age two. Smalls aimed to pay for their freedom by purchasing them outright, but the price was steep, $800. He had managed to save up only $100. It might have taken him decades to reach $800.
Civil War
Escape from slavery
In April 1861, the Civil War began with the Battle of Fort Sumter in nearby Charleston Harbor. In the fall of 1861, Smalls was assigned to steer the CSS Planter, a lightly armed Confederate military transport under the command of Charleston's District Commander Brigadier General Roswell S. Ripley. Planters duties were to survey waterways, lay mines, and deliver dispatches, troops and supplies. Smalls piloted the Planter throughout Charleston harbor and beyond, on area rivers and along the South Carolina, Georgia and Florida coasts. From Charleston harbor, Smalls and the Planters crew could see the line of federal blockade ships in the outer harbor, seven miles away. Smalls appeared content and had the confidence of the Planters crew and owners, but, at some time in April 1862, he began to plan an escape. He discussed the matter with all of the other enslaved people in the crew except one, whom he did not trust.On May 12, 1862, the Planter traveled ten miles southwest of Charleston to stop at Coles Island, a Confederate post on the Stono River that was being dismantled. There, the ship picked up four large guns to transport to a fort in Charleston harbor. Back in Charleston, the crew loaded of ammunition and of firewood onto the Planter.
On the evening of May 12, the Planter was docked as usual at the wharf below General Ripley's headquarters. Its three white officers disembarked to spend the night ashore, leaving Smalls and the crew on board, "as was their custom." Before the officers departed, Smalls asked Captain Relyea if the crew's families could visit, which was occasionally allowed, and he approved on condition that they depart before curfew. When the families arrived, the men revealed the plan to them.
This was the first the women and children had heard of it, although Smalls recently had told Hannah. She had known that Smalls longed to escape but hadn't realized that he was formulating a plan and intended to execute it. She was taken aback but quickly regained her composure and told him, “It is a risk, dear, but you and I, and our little ones must be free. I will go, for where you die, I will die. The other women were less steadfast. They cried and screamed when they learned what they had stumbled into, and the men struggled to quiet them.... Later, once the shock had worn off, those women admitted that they were glad for a chance at freedom....
At some point, three crew members pretended to escort the family members back home, but they circled around and hid aboard another steamer docked at the North Atlantic wharf. At about 3:00 a.m. on May 13, Smalls and seven of the eight enslaved crewmen made their previously planned escape to the Union blockade ships. Smalls put on the captain's uniform and wore a straw hat similar to the captain's. He sailed the Planter past what was then called Southern Wharf and stopped at another wharf to pick up his wife and children and the families of other crewmen.
Smalls guided the ship past the five Confederate harbor forts without incident, as he gave the correct steam-whistle signals at checkpoints. The Planter had been commanded by Captain Charles C. J. Relyea, and Smalls copied Relyea's manners and straw hat on deck to fool Confederate onlookers from shore and the forts. The Planter sailed past Fort Sumter at about 4:30 a.m.
As the nearly-free slaves approached Fort Sumter, their apprehension grew. It was the most heavily armed of the Confederate forts and tended to be manned by the most suspicious soldiers. One of the men aboard later said, “When we drew near the fort every man but Robert Smalls felt his knees giving way and the women began crying and praying again." As the Planter approached the fort, several men urged Smalls to give it a wide berth. Smalls refused, saying that such behavior would almost certainly arouse suspicion. He steered the ship along its normal path, slowly, as though he were merely enjoying the early morning air and in no particular hurry. When Fort Sumter flashed the challenge signal, Smalls again gave the correct hand signs. There was a long pause. The fort didn’t immediately respond, and Smalls now expected cannon fire to shred the Planter at any moment. Finally, the fort signaled that all was well, and Smalls sailed his ship out of the harbor.
The alarm was only raised after the ship was beyond gun range, for, rather than turn east towards Morris Island, Smalls had headed straight for the Union Navy fleet, replacing the rebel flags with a white bed sheet that had been brought by his wife. The Planter had been seen by the, which was about to fire until a crewman spotted the white flag. In the dark, the sheet was difficult to see, but the sunrise arrived which allowed viewing.
Witness account:
Just as No. 3 port gun was being elevated, someone cried out, "I see something that looks like a white flag"; and true enough there was something flying on the steamer that would have been white by application of soap and water. As she neared us, we looked in vain for the face of a white man. When they discovered that we would not fire on them, there was a rush of contrabands out on her deck, some dancing, some singing, whistling, jumping; and others stood looking towards Fort Sumter, and muttering all sorts of maledictions against it, and "de heart of de Souf," generally. As the steamer came near, and under the stern of the Onward, one of the Colored men stepped forward, and taking off his hat, shouted, "Good morning, sir! I've brought you some of the old United States guns, sir!"
The Onwards captain, John Frederick Nickels, boarded the Planter, and Smalls asked for a United States flag to display. He surrendered the Planter and its cargo to the United States Navy. Smalls's escape plan had succeeded.
The Planter and description of Smalls's actions were forwarded by Nickels to his commander, Capt. E.G. Parrott. In addition to its own light guns, Planter carried the four loose artillery pieces from Coles Island and 200 pounds of ammunition. Most valuable, however, were the captain's code book containing the Confederate signals and a map of the mines and torpedoes that had been laid in Charleston's harbor. Smalls's own extensive knowledge of the Charleston region's waterways and military configurations proved highly valuable. Parrott again forwarded the Planter to flag officer Samuel Francis Du Pont at Port Royal, describing Smalls as very intelligent. Smalls gave detailed information about Charleston's defenses to Du Pont, commander of the blockading fleet. Federal officers were surprised to learn from Smalls that, contrary to their calculations, only a few thousand troops remained to protect the area, the rest having been sent to Tennessee and Virginia. They also learned that the Coles Island fortifications on Charleston's southern flank were being abandoned and were without protection. This intelligence allowed Union forces to capture Coles Island and its string of batteries without a fight on May 20, a week after Smalls's escape. The Union would hold the Stono inlet as a base for the remaining three years of the war. Du Pont was impressed, and he wrote the following to the Navy secretary in Washington: "Robert, the intelligent slave and pilot of the boat, who performed this bold feat so skillfully, informed me of , presuming it would be a matter of interest." He "is superior to any who have come into our lines – intelligent as many of them have been."