Smalls, Robert
1839-1915 · Contribution: 1862-1866
Commandeered the Confederate steamship CSS Planter in Charleston Harbor in May 1862, freeing himself, his family, and twelve other enslaved people and delivering the ship to the Union Navy, becoming the first African American captain of a U.S. military vessel
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Impact on the world
At 3 a.m. on May 13, 1862, with the Planter's white officers ashore for the night, Smalls — an enslaved pilot forced to crew the Confederate transport — raised steam, donned the captain's straw hat, and sailed the ship past five Confederate forts using the correct signal codes before surrendering it, its cargo of artillery, and a Confederate code book to the Union blockade fleet; his exploit made him a national hero in the North and directly helped persuade President Lincoln to authorize the enlistment of Black soldiers, leading Secretary of War Edwin Stanton to approve up to 5,000 Black enlistees soon after. The Navy declined to formally commission him as a pilot since he had not attended a naval academy, but the Army made him a lieutenant to ensure proper pay, and after he kept the Planter from being scuttled during a Confederate attack near Secessionville, he was promoted to captain, becoming the first African American to command a U.S. military vessel; he participated in 17 engagements over the course of the war.
Life & background
Born into slavery on April 5, 1839, in Beaufort, South Carolina, the son of an enslaved woman, Lydia Polite, and likely her enslaver, Smalls was sent to Charleston at age 12 to be hired out as a laborer, eventually working the city's docks and waterfront. After his 1862 escape and Civil War service, he used prize money from the Planter's capture to purchase his former enslaver's Beaufort mansion, in which he and his family lived for decades, and led a 1864 boycott in Philadelphia that helped desegregate that city's streetcars. He entered Reconstruction-era politics, serving in the South Carolina House and Senate before five terms in the U.S. House of Representatives (1875-1887), where he fought against Black disenfranchisement and pushed for military and transportation integration; he later served two decades as Beaufort's federal customs collector. He died February 23, 1915, in Beaufort, and in 2007 the U.S. Army named a logistics support vessel, the USAV Major General Robert Smalls, in his honor.
Sources
- National Park Service; American Battlefield Trust; U.S. House of Representatives (History, Art & Archives)
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