Be Free or Die--The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero by Cate Lineberry

Author:Cate Lineberry
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

CHAPTER 8

Captain Smalls

Smalls had a lot on his mind In late November 1863. He and Hannah were expecting their third child any day while mourning the recent death of Robert, Jr. Smalls had done everything he could to keep his family together. He had saved them from slavery, but he had been unable to save his child from disease.

That fall was also a difficult time for the Union at Port Royal as it continued to struggle to capture Charleston. The Union had eventually taken Battery Wagner on Morris Island after a seven-week siege against the Confederates that had lasted until September 7, but Charleston had managed to remain in Confederate hands. The Union was so desperate to take the city that it had been shelling it and the Confederate fortifications in the harbor since August. The bombardment, which had heavily damaged the lower portion of the city, the only part the shells could reach, would last 567 days, the longest siege in American history.1

Despite the personal and military concerns that weighed on Smalls, he would continue to demonstrate unwavering courage. On November 26 he was once again piloting the Planter, delivering provisions from Folly Island to Morris Island, now the base for more than six thousand soldiers. As Smalls steered the steamer through a narrow creek, the vessel came under heavy fire. The Planter was caught in a crossfire from the battery at Secessionville, a Union battery on Block Island, and a Union ship, the Commodore Macdonough.2 The captain of the Planter, a man described as a “brawny white sailor,” panicked, abandoned his post, and hid in the steamer’s coal bunker.3 (By that time the Planter had been converted from a wood-burning steamer to a coal-burning vessel.) Smalls saw the captain flee and immediately took over his duties.

“There was nothing for me to do save to take charge,” Smalls later wrote, “and I brought her safe from under fire and out of danger.”4 Had he not, the vessel could have been destroyed and those aboard killed in the attack. It is also quite possible that if the Planter had been severely damaged, the crew would have had to abandon her, which might have led to their capture.5 Had that happened, Smalls would certainly have been executed in accordance with Confederate policy. Once he had the steamer out of range of the guns, Smalls captained it to Morris Island, where he safely delivered the provisions and the crew.

When the chief quartermaster of the Department of the South, J. J. Elwell, learned what had happened, he immediately issued the following order to Captain A. T. Dunton, the chief assistant quartermaster on Folly and Morris Islands:

Sir: You will please place Robert Smalls in charge of the United States transport Planter as captain. He brought her out of Charleston Harbor more than a year ago, running under the guns of Sumter, Moultrie, and the other defenses of that stronghold. He is an excellent pilot, of undoubted bravery, and in every respect worthy of that position.

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