Robert Smalls

Robert Smalls was probably one of the most significant black people of the Civil War. He was born the offspring of a black female slave from and Guinea a white plantation owner. While still a child Smalls mother brought to work at the Ashdale Plantation in South Carolina. Lydia Roberts mother, at age 49 bore Robert, her only child in a slave cabin in the back of the McKee house. At the age of 12 Smalls went to hire himself out for pay. At age 17 he got married to Hannah Jones, 32 a slave hotel maid. Robert Smalls began to work to buy his wife and child freedom. "Smalls was hired in 1861 as a deckhand on Planter, the transport steamer serving Brigadier General Roswell Ripley, commander of the Second Military District of South Carolina. Smalls later became its pilot. In the early morning hours of May 13, 1862, while the white crew was ashore, Smalls, then 23, commandeered Planter, loaded with armaments for the rebel forts. With his wife, children and 12 other slaves aboard he gave the correct whistle signal as he passed each rebel fort. He then sailed toward Onward, the nearest Union blockading ship. As Onward prepared to fire on the approaching rebel ship, it raised the white flag of surrender. As Planter came alongside the Union ship, Smalls, elegantly dressed in a white shirt and dress jacket, raised his hat high in the air and shouted, "Good morning, sir! I have brought you some of the old United States' guns, sir!" 1 Small's was then hailed as a hero by the Union Newspapers. Due to his reconnaissance to the Stono and Mosquito River inlet, the Union was able to successfully take the Charleston Harbor. Latter he went to Washington D.C. in 1862 to request the recruitment of 5000 black troops from Lincoln and was soon granted. In 1863 Smalls was given pilot of the ironclad Keokuk, during a failed Union attack on Fort Sumter. Due to intensive fire on the ironclad at or below the waterline it eventually sank. Due to his acts of bravery,