Smalls, Robert (1839-1915)

Robert Smalls (1839-1915)

Source

African american sailor

The Escape. While their white officers slept peacefully in Charleston, the slave crew aboard the Confederate gunboat Planter made a daring run for Northern vessels anchored off the coast of South Carolina. During the predawn hours of 13 May 1862, the ship’s pilot, Robert Smalls, and his crew sailed the vessel from its dock in Charleston Harbor, discreetly slipped past Confederate cannons at Fort Sumter, and surrendered the ship to the Union blockading squadron. Startled by the fast approaching ship, Northern seamen prepared their guns to fire, but quickly stopped after a sailor spotted a white flag. The astonished Northerners seized the ship with its four unmounted guns and crew of eight African American males (five women and three children were also aboard). The remarkable tale of the Planter quickly spread throughout the divided nation, making Smalls a hero in the North and an outlaw in the South.

Early Life. Robert Smalls was born a slave on 5 April 1839 in Beaufort, South Carolina. His mother worked as a house servant for her master John K. McKee, a wealthy plantation owner. McKee was probably Smalls’s father. After McKee died in 1848, his son Henry inherited Smalls and his mother. In 1851 McKee hired Smalls out as a laborer in Charleston. There he worked as a waiter, lamplighter, and stevedore. Eventually he secured employment on a commercial ship docked in Charleston. After gaining experience as a sailor, Smalls hired on to pilot the Planter in March 1861, a cotton steamer converted into a gunboat by the Confederate government in order to move supplies between forts in Charleston Harbor.

A Contraband of War. Like all slaves who fled to Union lines, Smalls was received by the Union navy as a contraband of war. Although the Planter and its crew represented a propaganda coup for the North, Smalls’ knowledge of local waters and enemy encampments proved more valuable. Piloting the ship for over a year before his defection, Smalls had traveled along the coast of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida laying mines, transporting men and supplies, and surveying local rivers. His intelligence reports convinced Union naval officers to attack Rebel strongholds on Cole’s Island on the Stono River immediately. Smalls had informed the Union naval commander for the area that the Confederates recently disarmed the fort and sent its cannons to Charleston because of a weapons shortage. On 20 May 1862 Union gunboats seized the fort without a fight, and the Northern navy used the river inlet as a base of operations for the rest of the war. Shortly afterward Smalls became a pilot for a Federal naval ship. Due to navy restrictions, however, Smalls served the Union navy as an army volunteer since the navy only enlisted blacks as ship laborers.

National Hero. The story of Robert Smalls and the Planter became a national phenomenon. Harper’s Weekly published a celebrated article about the great escape along with pictures of Smalls and the Confederate gunboat. To honor the feat, Congress passed a bill bestowing a cash prize to Smalls and the other crew members; Smalls received $1,500 while the crew received $400-$450 each. After a brief stint as pilot for the U.S.S. Wabash, Smalls traveled to New York and embarked on a speaking tour designed to generate excitement for the Union cause. Following the tour, Smalls returned to South Carolina and was appointed captain of the Planter (now in service with the Union army), an unprecedented promotion for an African American during the Civil War. Smalls fought in seventeen engagements before docking the Planter in Philadelphia for an overhaul and repairs. He spent seven months in the city and afterward returned to Charleston, where the Planter was primarily engaged in ferrying men and supplies across the harbor for the remainder of the war. During the Reconstruction era Smalls used his national reputation to gain political office in South Carolina, first as a state representative and later as a congressman in the U.S. House of Representatives. He died in 1915.

Source

Edward A. Miller Jr., Gullah Statesman: Robert Smalls from Slavery to Congress, 1839-1915 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995).