Captain Robert Smalls

Black Hero of the American Civil War

Portrait of Captain Robert Smalls and the CSS Planter.

Miles from Fort Sumter, a fleet of Union ships formed a blockade outside Charleston Harbor on the orders of President Abraham Lincoln. On May 13, 1862, in the pre-dawn hours, 23-year-old Robert Smalls—an enslaved Beaufort, South Carolina native—initiated a daring plan to free his family and sail ten miles to meet those ships and deliver the sidewheel-propelled vessel he planned to steal. Along with fellow enslaved persons, he sneaked onto a wooden wharf and commandeered the Planter, a former cotton transport ship moored there.

Smalls, posing as a Confederate captain, sailed to a rendezvous point to pick up his wife Hannah, and their two children, four-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, and Robert Jr., their infant. Using the steam whistle to sound a coded signal, Smalls then sailed through two Confederate checkpoints. He had seen the real captain of the Planter do this on several occasions to communicate to the posted sentries that all was well. When they sailed beyond the Confederate line, the makeshift crew hoisted a white flag, surrendered to the Union, and subsequently won their freedom.

Robert Smalls was born in Beaufort, South Carolina, on April 5, 1839. His mother was an enslaved woman named Lydia Polite, a former field worker who became a house servant to Henry McKee. Though his father is unknown, one of the McKees or a plantation manager named Patrick Smalls is suspected to be the father of Robert Smalls. While Smalls worked with his mother in the McKee home, she revealed the horrors of slavery to him by having him witness severe beatings routinely doled out to field hands. Smalls became incensed at the brutality of their treatment and defied authority. He was often in the confines of the Beaufort jail as a result.

Lydia Polite intervened by arranging for Smalls to be sent east to Charleston and hired as a waterfront laborer. At age 12, he sent back money from his wage to his master, keeping only a dollar for himself. Over the years, he worked as a lamplighter and eventually learned to make sails, set up and repair rigging, and even sail ships. Smalls became a stevedore foreman, overseeing the loading and unloading of cargo ships. He also became a navigator, which took him up and down the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia. He became intimately familiar with those coasts, as well as Charleston harbor.

A portrait of the children of Elizabeth Lydia Smalls Bampfield (grandchildren of Robert Smalls) courtesy of Michael Boulware Moore, whose grandmother—Ariana Bampfield Boulware—is the one-year-old infant.

He met an enslaved woman in Charleston named Hannah Jones, who worked as a hotel maid. The couple married on December 24, 1856. Hannah already had two daughters, but she gave birth to their first child in February 1858. It was a girl they named Elizabeth Lydia Smalls. They had a second child named Robert Jr, who saw freedom before he died of smallpox at two years of age. A second daughter, Sarah, came in 1863. While the Smalls family lived apart from their masters, they consistently sent the bulk of their income back to them.

Smalls intended to purchase his family’s freedom, but the Kingman family, who “owned” her and her children, set the cost too high. Of the $800 needed, he only managed to save $100. Smalls realized it would take several decades of work to earn enough. His only recourse was to escape with his family, which is what he promised Hannah. When the Civil War commenced, the Confederate government conscripted Smalls into service, and he was virtual pilot, or wheelman, of an ammunition transport ship chartered by them: the CSS Planter. The black crew of enslaved persons assigned to the steamer grew to trust Smalls, as did its three white officers, Samuel H. Smith, the official pilot; Zerich Pitcher, the engineer; and Captain C.J. Relyea. Smalls hatched his escape plan and shared it with the black crew members.

On May 12, 1862—the day before Smalls put his plan in motion—he and the black crew members were tasked with loading heavy artillery weapons and ammunition onto the Planter for transport to a fort. The men took their time loading up to ensure that the guns remained on the steamer overnight. The three white officers had gone ashore and planned to stay in town until morning. Smalls bore a striking resemblance to the captain in overall bearing and physique. He used that to his advantage by impersonating the captain in the dead of night. Confederate sentries would only see his silhouette from a distance, but he donned the captain’s straw hat for added effect. Two crew members found the plan too risky and decided to stay behind because Smalls either meant to escape or die trying.

Smalls only needed to reach the Union blockade and surrender the Confederate steamer. But that meant safely navigating Charleston harbor without being fired upon by rebel guns. And there was also no guarantee that Union ships would not fire upon the Planter as it approached. But the risks were worth taking. Union General Benjamin Butler, who decided on the fate of enslaved people who made it to Union lines, created a new rule for them the previous year. Through a military act, they became war contraband, former property of the South now forfeited to the government of the Union. Word of this act spread throughout the Confederacy. For Robert Smalls, his family, and his crew, it meant immediate freedom and protection. But as contraband, formerly enslaved persons were also put to work: women performed domestic tasks such as laundering clothes and cooking, and the men provided military service. Smalls was ready for the eventuality and welcomed it.

According to a Navy report that recounted the events of May 13, 1862, around 2:00 a.m., Smalls ordered his crew to raise the Confederate and South Carolina flags to mask their operation. They then pulled anchor and sailed to West Atlantic Wharf to gather others, including Hannah and the children, three men, four women, and another child. As the hour drew toward 4:00 a.m., the Planter passed Fort Johnson with Smalls sounding the whistle to deliver the coded signal. They eased past Fort Sumter at 4:15 a.m. before passing the Confederate line.

As the Planter approached the Union blockade, Smalls ordered the crew to raise the white flag, which was the white sheet his wife Hannah brought aboard. The sun had risen as they sailed toward the USS Onward, one of the Union ships, and Acting Volunteer Lieutenant J. Frederick Nickels—its captain—was alerted to the white flag. Smalls surrendered the Planter and the heavy artillery she carried, and the black crew gathered on deck celebrated with shouts of joy, dancing, and singing. They were all free. Smalls and his crew were hailed as heroes in the North and received glowing remarks in the press. Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont wrote of smalls saying he “is superior to any who have come into our lines—intelligent as many of them have been.”

Smalls surrendered the Planter and the heavy artillery she carried, and the black crew gathered on deck celebrated with shouts of joy, dancing, and singing. They were all free.

Smalls shared his knowledge of the South’s defenses with the Union, which led to the Confederate post, Coles Island, being captured a week after his escape. At the end of May 1862, Congress passed a private bill that appraised the Planter and awarded Smalls and his black crew half the value. Smalls received $1,500, but a report later circulated deeming the payment too low. He received another sum toward the close of the century, making his total $5,000 for the capture of the Planter.

Smalls served as a pilot of six Union warships during the war and was promoted to captain in December 1863. General Quincy Adams Gilmore granted Smalls the promotion after his valiant display during an attack on the Planter that saw its white captain cower in the coal bunker in fear. Despite the attack and the captain abandoning his post to seek shelter, Smalls took command of the vessel. As captain, he received a salary of $150 per month, making him one of the highest-paid black officers in the Union. 

The house Robert Smalls purchased at 511 Prince Street in Beaufort, South Carolina.

After the war, Smalls and his family settled down in Beaufort, South Carolina, where he purchased the house of his former master. In 1863, a lapse in tax payments forced the Union to seize the house from the McKees. Not only did his mother, Lydia, reside with him for the rest of her life, but Smalls also allowed Jane McKee, the elderly wife of his former master, to move back into the home and remain there until her death. Smalls became involved in state politics when he served as a delegate in national and state conventions for the Republican party. He was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives in 1868 and served in the state Senate in 1872. For five terms, Smalls represented South Carolina as a congressman in the United States House of Representatives beginning in 1874. 

Smalls experienced slavery, emancipation, and the privilege of black Americans serving at the highest echelons of the U.S. government before he witnessed the destructive force of Jim Crow. Robert Smalls died of malaria and diabetes on February 23, 1915. He was 75 years old.

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