Chronicles of Black Courage - African American Confederate sailor Robert Smalls

Ebony, Nov, 2001 by Lerone Bennett, Jr.

Robert Smalls sailed Confederate ship out of Charleston harbor

HISTORIAN Benjamin, Quarles said the feat was "unparalleled in audacity."

A contemporary reporter said it was "one of the most daring and heroic adventures" of the war.

A Union admiral hailed it in a special dispatch to the secretary of the navy.

The heroic feat that attracted the attention of contemporaries, cabinet officers and latter-day historians was the "abduction" of a Confederate ship by a bold slave who sailed it out of the heavy fortified Charleston harbor to the ring of Union ships blockading the Atlantic coast. The slave's name was Robert Smalls, and his act made him a national hero and changed the balance of forces in the Charleston area. More important perhaps it demonstrated the fatal flaw of the slave system which could proscribe everything except the indomitable tenacity of spirit of the slaves.

Smalls was only 23 at the time, and his story reflected the contradictions of the slave system and the absurdities of racism. A native of South Carolina, born in slavery in Beaufort on April 5, 1839, he was one of scores of slave seamen who were impressed into service on Confederate ships at the beginning of the Civil War. Many of these seamen were better sailors than their masters. Smalls, in fact, was said to be one of the best pilots on the South Carolina coast. It was said that he knew the location of every reef, shoal and torpedo in the Charleston harbor and that he could almost navigate the South Carolina coast with his eyes closed.

Because of his undoubted skills, Smalls was promoted to wheelman of the Planter, a Confederate steamer which served as the flagship and dispatch boat of Brig. Gen. Roswell Ripley, deputy commander of the Charleston defenses. The title was inexact, for Smalls was the de facto pilot--a position no slave could hold--of the Planter, which was a light and fast vessel made of live oak and red cedar, 150 feet long and 46 feet wide. The steamer, which was perhaps the best Confederate war ship in the harbor, was armed with a 32-pounder, on pivot, and a 24-pounder howitzer and carried a crew of three Whites and eight Blacks, including Smalls and two slave engineers, John Smalls (no relation) and Alfred Gradine.

Throughout the early months of the war, the Planter plied the waters of the South Carolina coast, talking men and arms to the forts ringing the harbor and delivering dispatches and orders of the commanding generals. Smalls, who had, according to contemporaries, a horror of slavery, manned the wheel and kept his eyes and ears open. By February 1862, he knew almost as much about the coastal defenses as his captain, and an idea, stunning in its simplicity and its danger, grew in his mind. According to the story he told later, the idea assumed concrete form when a Black member of the crew made fun of his physical resemblance to Captain C.J. Relyea--both men were short and stocky--and suggested that it was almost impossible to tell them apart at a distance. The other members of the crew laughed, but Smalls, frowning, cautioned them against repeating the joke. He then summoned trusted members of the crew to the rooms he shared with his wife, Hannah, on East Bay Street, where he outlined a plan of escape.

The plan was bold and simple. The crew would wait for a dark night when the White officers were away from the ship. Smalls would then impersonate the captain and leisurely sari the ship out of the harbor, giving the signals and passwords he had memorized. Women and children would be hidden on a boat near the wharf and picked up on the way.

It was a simple plan, and a hazardous plan. For it was about seven miles from the battery to the blockading squadron of 10 ships off the coast. To reach the squadron, the boat would have to pass directly beneath the guns of four or five forts. One misstep, one false move would mean disaster.

There were, of course, objections and questions. What if something went wrong? What if the plans miscarried and the batteries of Castle Pinckney, Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter opened fire?

The answer, Smalls said, was simple. They would blow up the ship and die as free men and women.

So went the plan and so, up to a point, went the execution.

For two or three weeks in April and May, Smalls and his colleagues worked and watched, speaking in code, silently appraising the obstacles and opportunities. Finally, on May 12, 1862, all of the elements came together. On that day--a Monday--the Planter returned to Charleston with four guns, including a gun from Fort Sumter, which were to be delivered on the next day to Fort Ripley. Captain Relyea and the two White officers went to their homes to sleep for the night, telling Smalls to have the ship in readiness for an early-morning departure. Smalls, betraying no emotion, said, "Aye, aye, sir." The officers departed, and the countdown began.

By means we can only imagine, Smalls alerted certain allies, including his wife, who were hidden on a boat nearby. Simultaneous with these measures, he began to organize the boat and its occupants for travel.