The Improbable Story of Robert Smalls, Beaufort Hero

Relevant History welcomes historical fiction author Karen Lynn Allen. Allen grew up in San Francisco and Edmonds, Washington. At seventeen, she returned to California to study English and industrial engineering at Stanford University. Early in her working career, she worked for Intel, Kellogg's, and Procter and Gamble, but writing was always her true love. Her first novel, Pearl City Control Theory, reflects her experiences working in corporate America.  Her latest novel, Beaufort 1849, a novel of antebellum South Carolina published by Cabbages and Kings Press, is based on two years of research. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and three children. For more information, check her blog.

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This is a piece of history I wish I could’ve incorporated into Beaufort 1849 but the timing just wouldn’t work.

Robert Smalls began his life in 1839 in a slave cabin in Beaufort. In his teens he was sent to Charleston and hired out to work for wages that his owner would collect, a not uncommon practice. He worked in a hotel, as a lamplighter, and then on the wharves and docks of Charleston. He married, had children, and eventually worked his way up to a wheelman, learning to pilot the Charleston harbor. Though undeniably constrained by the realties of slavery, his life had much more scope for initiative and resourcefulness than the average slave.

During the Civil War, Smalls was assigned as wheelman on the steamer, Planter, an armed dispatch and transport boat used by the Confederacy. On the night of May 13, 1862, the white crew decided to spend the night on shore, probably to amuse themselves with the distractions Charleston had to offer. Robert Smalls and the seven other slave crewmen took the opportunity to strike. With a Confederate flag flying and Smalls dressed in a captain’s uniform, at 3 a.m. Smalls backed the boat out of her slip and made way to a nearby wharf where the families of Smalls and other crew members were hiding in wait. After loading the contraband passengers, Smalls brazenly chugged the boat past the five Confederate forts guarding the harbor. Then, taking down the Confederate flag and hoisting a white sheet in its stead, he made a beeline for the blockading Federal fleet just beyond. Luckily the first US Navy ship he encountered noticed the sheet moments before it was set to open fire on the renegade vessel.

Smalls turned Planter over to the U.S. Navy, along with its cargo of artillery and explosives. Even more valuable, he handed over a codebook that revealed Confederacy secret signals and placement of mines and torpedoes around Charleston harbor. In addition, due to his comprehensive familiarity with the area, Smalls was able to offer extensive information about the harbor’s defenses.

The North was delighted! Smalls was an overnight hero and media sensation in Northern papers. Congress passed a bill awarding Smalls and the other seven crewmen $1500 in prize money for the captured vessel. Two weeks after the daring escape Smalls even met Abraham Lincoln himself, who was impressed by Smalls’s account of his exploits. Smalls’s deeds became a major argument for allowing African Americans to serve in the Union Army, and Smalls himself served as a pilot for the Union forces. In 1863 Smalls became the first black Captain of a vessel in the service of the United States.

As much as Smalls was lauded by the North, he was in equal parts reviled by the South. In a war, one side’s hero is almost necessarily the other side’s varlet.

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A big thanks to Karen Lynn Allen. She’ll give away a copy of Beaufort 1849 to someone who contributes a comment on my blog this week. I'll choose the winner from among those who comment by Sunday at 6 p.m. ET. Delivery is available within the U.S. and Canada for the winner’s choice of print or ebook format, and ebook format only for an international winner.

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Comments

[Tracy Smith]

What fascinating story of South Carolina history! Smalls must have been quite a man.

I always enjoy reading both fiction and non-fiction about less well known aspects of history.

[Suzanne Adair]

Hi Tracy. I have to admit that I laughed aloud when I got to the part in the story where Smalls headed the boat out of Charleston harbor flying the Confederate flag. What's remarkable is that in the midst of war, he made his move without violence.

[Dlweaton]

I'm just back from a week in Beaufort, SC, where Robert Smalls is still quite in evidence.

It's one of my favorite places, so I must read this book!

[Suzanne Adair]

That does it. I need to get to Beaufort, SC and check out its hero, since he's still in evidence there.

And I'd like to know how Karen Lynn Allen, who has spent so much of her life on the Pacific Coast, came to be interested in Atlantic Coast history.

[Karen Lynn Allen]

Hi everyone! Suzanne, thanks for inviting me to do a guest post on your great blog.

I agree that Robert Smalls is a fascinating character from the era. His life was so remarkable and illustrative of the period (he later became a five term Congressman from Beaufort whose career ended ignominiously due to historical forces as Reconstruction ended) that I'm really surprised no one's done a bio pic on him. I too love his audacity and cleverness to escape with the boat without any violence.

[Karen Lynn Allen]

Beaufort is really beautiful, well worth a visit! It's so pleasant to wander the old neighborhoods and see the grand oaks and antebellum houses.

I became interested in Beaufort because its history--the birthplace of the Secession movement and then one of the first towns taken by Union forces--fit extremely well with the story I wanted to tell. I basically stumbled across Beaufort while scanning a Google map because it was in the general area where I wanted to locate my story. Then I started reading about its history and couldn't believe how perfect it was. In addition to being physically beautiful, it was a place of great wealth, culture and education, making its eventual fate even more dramatic.

[Naomi]

Karen, where did Robert Smalls go following turning the boat over to to the North? Why is he so popular in the South..I have not been able to figure that out yet?

[Warren Bull]

What an amazing story. Thanks so much for sharing it.

[Suzanne Adair]

Naomi and Warren, thanks for stopping by. Great questions, Naomi!

[Karen Lynn Allen]

As you can see in my follow up blog post, Robert Smalls, The Sequel, http://karenlynnallen.blogspot.com/2011/04/robert-smalls-sequel.html Smalls led an eventful life! After serving in the Union forces during the war, after the war he returned to Beaufort and spent the rest of his life there (with some time spent in Columbia, SC and Washington, D.C), first as a shopkeeper, then as a politician, and ultimately as a customs collector.

I don’t know how famous or popular Smalls is in the entire south, or even in all of South Carolina, but given his leading role as the most prominent African-American politician in South Carolina of the 19th century, Smalls has been well remembered in Beaufort. Originally that remembrance may have been kept alive by his church, the Tabernacle Baptist Church, where he is buried and where a bust of him stands in the courtyard today. In 1925, ten years after his death, a school in Beaufort was name after him, showing the town’s appreciation and respect even then. His house was dedicated as a national historic landmark in 1975, but it seems to be just in the past four or five years that his story is beginning to resonate and get the wider appreciation it deserves.

[Suzanne Adair]

Posted on behalf of M. E. Kemp:

Wonderful topic , Suzanne, and it's great to learn about how resourceful people can be under the most dire of circumstances. There's always hope and there are always heroes, most of whom remain unknown. Thanks to Karen for bringing one to life.

Marilyn aka: M.E. KEMP
DEATH OF A DANCING MASTER

[Karen Lynn Allen]

Thanks for your comment, Marilyn. I think it's interesting how heroism can take a myriad of forms, large and small. And, as you point out, it often goes unrecognized. But I do believe even small, unrecognized acts of courage and integrity have their impact on the world.

[Suzanne Adair]

Thanks, Karen, for showing us an overlooked but fascinating story of the Civil War!

[Catierhodes.wordpress.com]

What a cool slice of history. That took some serious research, didn't it? I can't wait until you post something else interesting.