Born April 5, 1839, Beaufort, South Carolina, U.S.—died February 23, 1915, Beaufort, Robert Smalls was an African American slave who became a naval hero for the Union in the American Civil War and went on to serve as a congressman from South Carolina during Reconstruction.

Robert Smalls mother, Lydia, descended of slaves from Guinea, was born on Ashdale Plantation on Ladies’ (now Lady’s) Island, S.C. and worked there as a field hand. While still a child she was brought to Beaufort to work as a house slave by her owner, John K. McKee. Smalls was sired by a white man - perhaps their owner, or Moses Goldsmith, a wealthy Jewish merchant from Charleston. At 49 Lydia bore Robert, her only child, in a slave cabin in the back yard of the McKee house. In Smalls’ interview with the American Freedmen’s Inquiry Commission he stated that he was, relatively speaking, well treated during his time as a house slave.

At 12 Smalls was sent to Charleston to hire himself out for pay. Until he was 18 his owner received all but $1 of Smalls’ pay. He worked in the city as a waiter, lamplighter, stevedore, ship rigger and sailor. At 18, he negotiated his situation with his owner and thereafter retained all but $15 per month of his pay.

His mother was a house slave and his father an unknown white man. Smalls was taken by his master in 1851 to Charleston, South Carolina, where he worked as a hotel waiter, hack driver, and rigger. In 1861, at the outbreak of the war, he was hired to work aboard the steamship Planter, which operated as an armed transport and dispatch vessel, carrying guns and ammunition for the Confederate army. On May 13, 1862, he and the other blacks on board seized control of the ship in Charleston Harbor, succeeded in passing through Confederate checkpoints, and turned the ship, its cargo of weapons, and several important documents over to a Union naval squadron blockading the city. This exploit brought Smalls great fame throughout the North. In 1863, when he was piloting the ironclad Keokuk in the battle for Fort Sumter, the vessel took many hits and was eventually sunk. Smalls's bravery was rewarded with command of the Planter later that year. He was the first African American captain of a vessel in U.S. service.

The plot to steal the Confederate steamship Planter started with a joke. One spring day in 1862, Captain C.J. Relyea and the ship's other officers went ashore at their homeport of Charleston, South Carolina, leaving the Planter in the hands of her African-American crewmen.

With the white men gone, 23-year-old wheelman Robert Smalls amused his fellow slaves by trying on Relyea's distinctive broad brimmed straw hat. The crew kidded Smalls about his resemblance to Relyea. Both men were short and stocky and suggested that from a distance it would be impossible to distinguish between the black slave and the white captain. Smalls cut short the ensuing laughter with a warning not to repeat the joke. He had and idea.

Later, at a secret meeting in Smalls' tiny East Bay Street room, he revealed his plan. On a night when the Planter's officers were ashore, the crew would take the ship from her mooring, pick up family members hidden aboard another vessel nearby, and sail to the safety of the Union blockading fleet outside the harbor. Smalls would disguise himself as the captain and duplicate Relyea's usual routine so as not to arouse suspicion when the Planter steamed past the watchful sentries at Charleston's Confederate forts and batteries.

Smalls was up to the task. Although he was referred to as the Planter's wheelman, Smalls was in fact the ship's pilot in all but name. The title being reserved exclusively for white men. But, since he had been sailing aboard the Planter since the Civil War began, he needed no supervision from a white man to sail the Planter safely. On an April Sunday, Smalls resembled the plotters at another clandestine meeting in his room to detail his plan. Then they waited for the right circumstances to spring the plot.

The opportunity finally arrived on the evening of May 12, 1862, when Captain Relyea ordered Smalls to ready the Planter for an early morning departure to deliver guns and ammunition to a battery. Smalls acknowledged the order and betrayed no excitement when Relyea and his white mate and chief engineer went ashore to spend the night, leaving Smalls and eight black crewmen aboard the ship.

With the whites gone, Smalls notified his shipmates that the time had come. Smalls and his crew waited and listened as a crier ashore called out the passing hours. At about 3:00an on May 13, Smalls donned the absent captain's coat and straw hat and ordered the crew to fire the boilers.

Crewmembers hoisted the Confederate and South Carolina flags, cast off the hawsers mooring the ship to the wharf, sounded the required departure signal, and slowly backed the Planter away from the dock. Imitating Relyea's gait and posture, Smalls ordered his crew to proceed to the North Atlantic Wharf in the Cooper River, where he made a brief stop to pick up his passengers which included five women and three children.

Among these were Smalls' wife and his children. With everyone safely aboard, Smalls blew the steam whistle, eased into the inner channel, patiently kept the ship at her regular pace, and as Confederate guards idly watched, sailed away from Charleston and slavery.





Union press hailed Smalls as a national hero, calling the ship “the first trophy from Fort Sumter.” A Congressional bill signed by President Lincoln awarded prize money to Smalls and his associates.

In August 1862 two Union generals sent Smalls and missionary Mansfield French to meet with Secretary of War Stanton and President Lincoln. Their request to recruit 5000 black troops was soon granted. In October, 1862 during a speaking tour of New York to raise support for the Union cause Smalls was presented an engraved gold medal by “the colored citizens of New York” for his heroism, love of liberty and patriotism.

Newspaper editorials citing Smalls’ gallantry shattered stereotypes about the capability of blacks. An editorial in the New York Daily Tribune said, “Is he not also a man - and is he not fit for freedom, since he made such a hazardous dash to gain it? . . . Is he not a man and a hero – whose pluck has not been questioned by even The Charleston Courier or The New York Herald? . . . What white man has made a bolder dash, or won a richer prize in the teeth of such perils during the war? . . . Perhaps [blacks are inferior to whites] but they seem to possess good material for improvement. Few white men have a better record than Robert Smalls.”

The report of the Secretary of the Navy in President Lincoln’s report to the 37th Congress states, “Stono River and Mosquito Inlet – From information derived chiefly from the contraband pilot, Robert Smalls, who had escaped from Charleston, Flag-Officer Du Pont, after proper reconnaissance, directed Commander Marchand to cross the bar with several gunboats and occupy Stono. The river was occupied as far up as Legareville, and examinations extended further, to ascertain the position of the enemies’ batteries. The seizure of Stono Inlet and river secured an important base for future operations, and was virtually a turning of the forces in Charleston harbor.”

On April 7, 1863, Smalls was pilot of the ironclad Keokuk during a failed Union attack on Fort Sumter. Struck 19 times at or below waterline, Keokuk sank the following morning, moments after the crew was rescued. On December 1, 1863, after an act of bravery under fire, Smalls became the first black captain of a vessel in the service of the United States. Smalls’ daughter, Sarah Voorhees, was born on the same date.

Taught to read and write by tutors, after the war Smalls became a major general in the South Carolina militia and a state legislator. He participated in drafting the constitution of the state in which he had been a slave. He was the most powerful black man in South Carolina for five decades.

Robert Smalls served five terms as a U.S. Congressman during Reconstruction. For nearly 20 years he served as U. S. Collector of Customs in Beaufort, S.C., where he lived as owner in the house in which he had been a slave.