Many slaves had harrowing stories of their escape from slavery during the American Civil War, most which were never written down and hence are lost to history. At least one, however, became famous, even legendary: the escape of Robert Smalls and the Planter. Born a slave in Beaufort in South Carolina’s Sea Islands region, Smalls was sent to Charleston as a preteen, where he developed a love for the water, rising to wheelman, piloting ships around Charleston Harbor and nearby waters.
By 1862, Robert Smalls was a married family man and wheelman aboard the CSS Planter, a sidewheel steamer, serving as a Confederate dispatch boat and transport. His position put him into the elite of Charleston’s slave community. But despite his exalted status, like other slaves he wanted to be free, and his position as wheelman of the Planter gave him the means. Smalls waited until a night when the ship’s three white crew members elected to sleep ashore. When that night finally came, he and most of the black crewmen, and their families, quietly boarded the ship in wee hours of May 13, 1862, and brazenly steamed past the Confederate harbor fortifications, and surrendered themselves and the Planter to the Union blockading fleet keeping station outside Charleston.
Robert Smalls daring act made him an overnight hero in the North. The New York Times noted in its May 16 edition:
His escape proved a great embarrassment to the Confederacy. The Charleston Daily Courier reported the day after the escape:
The escape led to Confederates to change procedures for ships traversing Charleston Harbor. The Daily Courier reported on May 15, “SPECIAL ORDER No. 35. NO STEAM BOAT, SMALL BOAT, OR VESSEL OF any description whatever, will be allowed to pass Fort Sumter, by day or night, without a report in person of the Captain thereof at said fort.” (A typical case of closing the barn door after the horse has escaped.)
Besides presenting the federal government with the Planter, Smalls provided Union forces with valuable intelligence on Confederate activities in Charleston. He was given a substantial share of the reward money for the ship’s capture and received an audience with President Lincoln, who wished to congratulate Smalls personally. Robert Smalls became captain of the now USS Planter, and with breaks to raise funds in the North for charitable work in the Sea Islands, remained in that position for the rest of the war, seeing considerable action in support of Union forces in coastal South Carolina.
After the Civil War, Robert Smalls became an important black leader in South Carolina and nationally. During Reconstruction he served in the South Carolina legislature and then in the U.S. Congress. After Reconstruction, Smalls lost his congressional seat, but remained an influential figure, especially in the Sea Islands, where he made his home. His continued support of the Republican Party won him the position of Collector of Customs in Beaufort in 1889, which he filled until a few years before his death in 1915. In short, an extraordinary career built on a legendary act 150 years ago today.
Sources: 1) http://www.robertsmalls.org/newspapers/N.%20Y.%20Times.5.16.62.htm; 2) http://www.robertsmalls.org/newspapers/CHARLESTON%20DAILY%20COURIER.5.14.62doc.htm; 3) http://www.robertsmalls.org/newspapers/CHARLESTON%20DAILY%20COURIER.5.15.62.htm.
Does anyone know what became of the cannon on board the Planter?
Any good sources of photographs of the vessel (or even drawings?) other than what can easily be googled. This is such a great story I am considering making a ship in a bottle of this vessel.