The Story of an Escaped Slave Who Hijacked a Confederate Ship and Sailed it to Freedom

On this episode of Our American Stories, here’s The History Guy with the story of Robert Smalls, an escaped slave-turned Civil War legend.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
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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 on

(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 board 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 Hanna'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 Charleston, 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 nearly

(03:47):
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 Once
the captain of the Onward boarded the planter, Smalls reportedly
asked if they had a Union flag for the ship

(04:07):
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 Charleston

(04:28):
defenses was invaluable, and he immediately went into the service
of the Union Navy, acting as the pilot a board
of 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 savaged by Fort Sumter 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 backboard USS Planter when

(05:11):
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 art Our Redshirts at a political rally

(07:01):
in 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 of.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
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. My

(08:58):
race needs no special defense, 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 the

(09:19):
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, if

(09:40):
any one of us could walk in his shoes and
do the same Robert Small's story here on Now American
Stories