At
the risk of being crude, and perhaps
irredeemably sexist, there are some acts so audacious that the English
language seems inadequate to describe them without resort to certain
old vulgarities. The word I have in mind today is balls as in big fat hairy balls. That is
certainly what it took for Robert Smalls,
then a 23 year old slave to
calmly sail away in a Confederate side-wheel Steamer under
the guns of at least one fortress and a Rebel flotilla to deliver the ship, cargo, crew, and passengers to the welcoming arms of the
United States Navy. This is what happened.
Smalls
was a skilled pilot and a trusted slave of whose owner had every expectation of loyalty
from a man raised above the drudgery
of servitude in the fields or on the docks. Robert Smalls had worked himself up from a Hotel porter to a stevedore and
finally a wheelman in the Port of Charleston, South Carolina. Various
employers compensated Smalls’
master, Henry McKee of Beaufort, South Carolina for his
services and supplied him and his wife
with basic food, clothing,
and housing near the docks—an
enslaved hotel maid and their three children. A wheelman was the title given to Black pilots
who were responsible for controlling
ships as they navigated the dangerous waters of Charleston
harbor. The respected word pilot was reserved for white men doing the same job for some of the best wages paid any workers in the South.
On
the morning of May 13, 1862 Smalls calmly boarded the CSS Planter, a mid-sized side-wheel steamer built and launched
in Charleston just two years earlier for the costal trade. She
was currently in Service of the CSA Army
Engineer Department under the command of Brigadier General Ripley as an armed dispatch boat and transport. She was partially laden with a cargo of ammunition and explosives. With him came an
all-slave crew of seven.
Earlier under cover of darkness seven passengers, five women and three children—Small’s wife and children
and the wives of other crew members—had boarded and were secured out of sight in the hold.
Smalls knew that the captain of the Planter, C.
J. Relyea would be ashore on
business well away from the port area.
The ship was one of several Small regularly piloted through the waters
of the harbor to open sea. Gambling that
he would attract no undue attention, Small hoisted the Confederate Stars and Bars flag, built a head of steam and had his crew cast
away from the dock before 5 am that morning.
He would have to sail past several armed ships in the harbor and under
the guns of a succession of shore batteries and fortresses guarding the South’s most important Atlantic blockade running port,
including those of the mighty former
Union bastion Fort Sumter whose bombardment a little more than a year
earlier had started the war. As he passed each ship and fort, Small blew
his steam whistle in customary salute. Since the Planter and its Black pilot were familiar
sights, she aroused no suspicion.
When
the ship broke out into open water
and was beyond the reach of Sumter’s big guns, Small hauled down the Rebel colors and hoisted a White flag. Hoping against
hope that the US Navy blockaders outside
the harbor would recognize his intentions, he made straight for the USS
Onward, an armed Clipper Ship prized
for her speed in chasing down blockade runners.
Fortunately
the Onward’s captain held his fire
and with some astonishment accepted Smalls’
surrender of the Confederate ship.
The
next day the Planter with Smalls in command was sent on to Flag Officer Samuel Francis Du Pont,
the senior Captain in charge of the Charleston Blockade
flotilla, at Port Royal,
South Carolina. In addition to the
valuable cargo, Smalls also brought vital
intelligence for Du Pont—news that the Rebels had abandoned defensive positions
on the Stono River allowing U.S.
forces to seize them without a bloody fight.
The news of the Smalls exploit electrified the North
which was starved for good news in a war that was, on the
whole, going very badly. Abolitionists
and others who were campaigning,
so far unsuccessfully, for the employment
of Blacks and escaped slaves in
the war in combat roles, were encouraged. A special
bill sailed through Congress and
sent to the willing President on May
30, to award prize money equal to half the value of the ship to Smalls and his
crew. Of that, Smalls was personally due one third. But the
government undervalued the ship at
$9,000—she was actually worth about $67,000—so that Small’s portion was only
$1,500. And neither Smalls nor his crew
were ever awarded prize money, as was customary, for the value of the cargo estimated to be worth over
$10,000 at war-time prices. Still for a former slave, the prize money
represented an unheard of fortune.
Du Pont accepted the ship into the Navy as the USS Planter. She was first put under the command
of Acting Master Philemon Dickenson
and when transferred to North Ediston under
Acting Master Lloyd Phoenix. Smalls was retained by the Navy as pilot, prized for his intimate knowledge of coastal waters and worked on several ships,
including the Planter. As part of the South Atlantic Blockade Squadron she saw action over the summer of 1862, including a joint expedition under Lieutenant Rhind with the
USS Crusader in which troops were landed at Simmons Bluff on the Wadmelaw River, where they destroyed a
Confederate encampment.
Despite her successful service, the Planter presented a significant problem for the Navy—she burned relatively hard to come-by wood for fuel instead of the abundant coal supplied by the fleet.
That fall she was transferred to
the Army and sent for service near Fort Pulaski on the coast of Georgia. Smalls and his old crew were assigned to
the delivery and then were accepted into Army service. He was appointed the regular pilot of the Planter,
On December 1, 1863, the Planter was caught in a crossfire between Union and Confederate forces. Captain
Nickerson ordered Small to surrender. He flatly
refused recognizing that he and the crew would not be treated as prisoners of war but would be summarily executed. Smalls asserted command and piloted the ship out of range of the
Confederate guns.
This
act might have been regarded as a mutiny
and resulted in his death by hanging. But Smalls luck had not run out. His superiors recognized his bravery and the cowardice of Captain Nickerson.
He was appointed captain of
the Planter, becoming the first
black man to command a United States
ship of war. Smalls continued to serve
as captain until the army sold Planter in 1866 after the end of the war.
The Planter continued in civilian service
for another ten years. Then on March 25,
1876 she ran aground and was damaged trying to save a disabled schooner. The captain beached her to try to repair a staved-in
hull. But a gale blew up and dragged her back to sea where she foundered. After the crew abandoned ship, she sank. When informed of her loss, Smalls tearfully
said that it was “like losing a member of my own family.”
Nine years
ago, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) reported that they had found the wreckage of the Planter in
shallow water off the coast.
As for
Smalls, if he had done nothing else in his life, he would be noteworthy. But his wartime adventure and service were
just Act I in a remarkable life.
After
the war Smalls returned with his prize money and earnings from his service to
his hometown of Beaufort where he bought
his former master’s house. He lived there with his wife, children and
elderly mother until her death. He later
even took in his former master’s infirm
widow. He went into business with Richard Howell Gleaves operating a store for Freedmen.
Smalls became an early leader of the Republican Party in Reconstruction Era South Carolina. He
was a delegate at several Republican National Conventions and participated
in the South Carolina Republican State Convention. Smalls served as a member of the South Carolina House of Representatives
from 1865 and 1870 and the state Senate
between 1871 and 1874. He even served briefly as the Commander of the South Carolina
Militia with the rank of Major General.
In
1874, Smalls was elected to the United States House of Representatives,
where he served from 1875 to 1879. From 1882 to 1883 he represented the 5th Congressional District in the House and
the 7th District and served from
1884 to 1887. That was four terms in
Congress, the last two after the withdrawal
of Union troops from the South
and the rise of Jim Crowe.
He was
targeted by Democrats for retribution and charged and indicted on phony corruption charges in the letting of a government printing contract.
It took a high level deal
swapping Democrats charged with election fraud and intimidation to keep Smalls out
of prison.
He was
one of the last Southern Blacks to
serve in Congress and his four terms made him the longest serving Black Congressman until Adam Clayton Powell.
After
leaving Congress he was appointed Collector
of Customs in Beaufort, serving from 1889 to 1911 except for the four years of Democrat Grover Cleveland’s second term.
Smalls
died on February 23, 1915 at the age of 75 and was buried in his family plot in the churchyard of the Tabernacle
Baptist Church in downtown Beaufort.
