How an Escaped Slave Hijacked a Confederate Ship and Sailed It to Freedom

On this episode of Our American Stories, The History Guy shares the remarkable story of Robert Smalls, an escaped slave who stole a Confederate ship, rescued his family, and delivered freedom to many others.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is our American Stories, and we tell stories about
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(00:31):
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Our next story comes to us from a man who's
simply known as the History Guy. His videos are watched
by hundreds of thousands of people of all ages on YouTube,

(00:54):
and he's been telling stories regularly here on our American Stories.
Here's the History Guy with the tale of an escaped
slave turned legend named Robert Smalls.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Robert Smalls was born into slavery in eighteen thirty nine
in Beaufort, South Carolina. His mother was a slave and
his father's not known, although it may well have been
his owner, Henry McKee as a youth, McKee rented Robert
out as a laborer, with McKee receiving the pay. Robert
was fond of the sea and so started taking work
at the Charleston docks, first as a steve adore and

(01:33):
loading ships and working the docks, and then on boats
as a sailor, sailmaker or fisherman. Eventually he came to
know the waters of the Carolina coast well and was
a skilled boat pilot, even those slaves were not given
that title. In eighteen fifty six, Robert married another slave,
a hotel maid named Hanna Jones. The couple was trusted
enough to live apart from their owners, although the owners

(01:55):
still took most of their pay. They had a daughter
and then a son, who died at the age of two.
The Civil War started just out front his door at
Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The Confederacy recognized Robert's skill
and pressed him into service as the wheelman bore the
CSS Planter, a sidewheel steamer that had been converted into

(02:16):
an armed dispatch boat. The Planter delivered dispatches, troops and supplies,
as well as laid mines then called torpedoes to protect
the harbor. Robert was a trusted member of the crew,
and his piloting skills were valuable given his knowledge and
experience with the coast. But Robert, like almost any person
who is being treated as property, wanted freedom. This was

(02:40):
particularly important to him as Hannah's owner was abusive and
he feared she might be sold away. He wished to
buy her freedom, but did not have enough money. They
had to escape, and in May eighteen sixty two he
saw his chance. Smalls had noticed that the Confederate officers
made a habit of leaving the ship at night, so
he and the other eight slaves aboard hatched a plan.

(03:03):
On May twelfth, eighteen sixty two, the Planter was docked
in Charlestown, carrying a load of four cannon that were
intended to add to the city's defense. When in the
evening the officers left the ship, Smalls and the crew
took the boat, met that their families had a pre
arranged spot in the harbor, and fled to the Union blockade.
This was no simple feat. Had they been caught, they

(03:24):
would all certainly have been executed. The harbor was well
defended with five Confederate harbor fourths each capable of destroying
the boat, but Smalls knew all the proper signals and
even impersonated the captain standing at the front of the boat.
Once free of the harbor, they lowered the Confederate flag
and put up a white sheet, hoping the ships of
the Union blockade would see it. Yet they were still

(03:46):
nearly fired upon by the Federal blockade fleet as the
captain of the arm clipper uss Onward, seeing the Confederate gunboat,
ordered the guns to ready, but a crewman with binoculars
saw Smalls and his compatriots waving frantically from the day.
Once the captain of the Onward boarded the Planter, Smalls
reportedly asked if they had a Union flag for the

(04:07):
ship to fly. Incredibly, Small's audacious plan allowed him to
not only steal a Confederate warship from a well defended
port and delivered as a prize to the Union, but
also to deliver nine families from slavery. Smalls became a
hero in the Union, but the Confederacy put a four
thousand dollars bounty on his head. His knowledge of the

(04:28):
Charleston defenses was invaluable, and he immediately went into the
service of the Union Navy, acting as the pilot a
board a number of vessels, including aboard the now USS Planter.
Having laid minds for the Confederacy, he now helped to
remove them. An eighteen eighty three naval report noted that
he participated in seventeen Civil War battles and engagements, including

(04:50):
serving as pilot of the ironclad USS Kiacuk during the
disastrous attack on Charleston April seventh of eighteen sixty three,
where the ship was savage by Fort Sumter's guns. The
heavily damaged ship was able to withdraw under her own power,
doing large part to Small's considerable piloting skills. In December
of eighteen sixty three, he was back onboard USS Planter

(05:11):
when the steamer got caught in a crossfire between Union
and Confederate troops near Foley Island. The captain of the boat,
James Nickerson, panicked and order the boat to surrender. Smalls refused,
knowing that he and the other black sailors would face
execution if they were captured. He took command was able
to navigate the boat outside the Confederate guns. For his heroism,

(05:32):
he was made captain of the Planter, the first black
man to command a United States ship. During the war,
he engaged in other heroics as well. He was instrumental
in convincing Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton
to allow the recruitment of black troops into the Union Army,
now to recruit former slaves for the first volunteer at
South Carolina Regiment, one of the first black regiments. He

(05:56):
supported efforts to raise money to educate former slaves, and
himself health achieved literacy. He was voted an unofficial delegate
to the Republican National Convention in eighteen sixty four. Also
that year, when he was forced to give up his
seat to a white passenger on a Philadelphia street car,
he left the car rather than sit in the open
overflow platform. That small act of rebellion helped him motivate

(06:19):
the state of Pennsylvania to into great public transportation in
eighteen sixty seven. Following the war, Smalls was a delegate
to the eighteen sixty eight South Carolina Constitutional Convention. He
was elected to the state House of Representatives and then
to the state Senate, and in eighteen seventy four was
elected to the US House of Representatives, but this was

(06:40):
a brutal era in US politics, where anti reconstructionists frequently
used violence and intimidation, often through shadow organizations of the Democrats,
such as the klu Klux Klan and the South Carolina Redshirts.
Thirty five African American officials were murdered by such organizations
during the period of reconstruction. Small's life was threatened by
a group of arts Redshirts at a political rally in

(07:01):
eighteen seventy six. Over his long political career, he had
to endure threats of violence, false and trumped up charges,
and open intimidation of voters. The young man who escaped
slavery by audaciously stealing a warship never faltered in the
face of adversity, escaping because he could not afford to
purchase his wife's freedom. After the war, he used some

(07:22):
of the money awarded by the Union as a prize
for the capture of the CSS planter to purchase his
former owner's home. The young hero, who played a pivotal
role in incorporating black soldiers into the Federal army, was
eventually a major general in the South Carolina Militia. In
two thousand and four, when the US Army named a
massive bess in class logistics support vessel, the Usavy Major

(07:45):
General Robert Smalls became the first U. S Army vessel
to be named after an African American. Through it all,
he faced terrible threats and discrimination. In the end, he
even had to fight for his pension. Despite being the
first black cap of a United States ship, he had
never actually officially been commissioned because of the color of
his skin. He had technically served throughout the war, including

(08:09):
seventeen engagements as a civilian. Robert Spalls died of diabetes
in nineteen fifteen at the age of seventy five. The
inscription on his monument is a quotation from a statement
he made to the South Carolina Legislature in eighteen ninety five.
My race needs no special defense, for the past history
of them in this country proves them to be the

(08:31):
equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an
equal chance in the battle.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Of life and a special thanks to the History Guy.
If you'd like to subscribe to his YouTube channel, and
I urge you to do it. It's the History Guy.
History deserves to be remembered. The History Guy. History deserves
to be remembered, and thanks to Greg Angler for the
production on the piece. And my goodness, what final words.

(08:58):
My race needs no special offense, for the past history
of them in this country proves them to be the
equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an
equal chance in the battle of life. And we tell
a lot of stories here on this show, and particularly

(09:19):
the iniquities perpetuated by this country on African Americans, a
story telling that needs to be remembered and told. And
we do it here because we tell all the stories
of this country, some good and not so good. And
Robert Small's ability to triumph despite these difficulties, my goodness,

(09:40):
if any one of us could walk in his shoes
and do the same Robert Small's story, here are now
American stories