Robert Smalls is not typically featured in history books, he doesn’t have any mainstream movies or shows about him, and the overwhelming majority of people have never heard of him. Yet he is arguably one of the 19th century’s greatest heroes and played a pivotal role in the Civil War. His life story could easily be turned into a Hollywood epic that rivals well-known classics and blockbuster movies such as Gladiator or
Glory
.
Smalls was born into slavery in 1839 in Beaufort, South Carolina. As a teenager, he worked many jobs along the coast and in Charleston Harbor, including sailmaker, rigger, and longshoreman. Smalls married when he was 17 and had his first child two years later. He tried to purchase his family’s freedom, but he did not have the financial means to do so. When the Civil War began, Smalls decided on another route â fighting for freedom.
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As a slave, Smalls was forced to fight for the Confederacy. Despite his bondage, Smalls formed a heroic plan to help the Union win the Civil War. He served as a pilot on the Confederate transport ship CSS Planter. On
May 13, 1862
, Smalls and a small crew hijacked the vessel and guided it to a Southern port under the command of the Union Navy. His bravery led to him
being named
the “first black Navy captain in the service of the United States.”
“The example of what he did and his personal conversations with Lincoln were one of the things that inspired President Lincoln to specifically let black troops into the Army and the Navy,”
Dr. Wilfred Reilly
, a political science professor at Kentucky State University, told me last year.
Smalls’s bravery led to him meeting President Abraham Lincoln. This meeting helped convince the president to allow black soldiers and former slaves to fight in the Civil War. Smalls’s valiant actions changed the history of the nation’s military, the war, and the United States. Smalls was named the
“first hero” of the Civil War
and won his family’s freedom.
But his story doesn’t end there. After the war, he entered the worlds of politics and business and made a significant impact. He helped establish the Republican Party in South Carolina and empowered black people’s lives after the Civil War.
“He formed business partners with both black and white people,” Reilly said. “He was elected to office, and he helped pass the legislation that began the South Carolina public schools. He also started the South Carolina Republican Party.”
In 1868, he was first elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives. Two years later, he was elected to the South Carolina state Senate, where he served until 1875. In 1882, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He remained a staunch supporter of the Republican Party throughout his career.
“I never lose sight of the fact that, had it not been for the Republican Party, I never would have been an office-holder of any kind â from 1862 to the present,” Smalls
wrote
in
1912 to Sen. Knute Nelson of Minnesota. Of the most famous part of this letter was Smalls
stating
that the Republican Party was “the party which unshackled the necks of four million human beings.”
“His whole story is just kind of fascinating,” Reilly said. “He was this sort of warrior, forced to be a pilot on this Confederate fighting boat. He stole the boat and took it to a Union port; joined the other side of the military and did well in the war; jet the president, integrated the military; went home, made some money, started the local Republican Party, and started the local school system.”
“Later in life, he ended up buying the plantation house that his former master had owned,” Reilly continued. “After he bought it, his former slavemaster’s wife of the former plantation owner was worried about being kicked out of the plantation and penniless. So Smalls, in what he described as a ‘radical act of mercy,’ let her live there. She remained there until she died. But Smalls owned the mansion that he once did chores in as a peasant.”
Smalls received numerous honors after his life. In 2004, the U.S. Army christened the USAV Major General Robert Smalls in his honor. Later, there was a training ground dedicated to Smalls and named after him. He
was posthumously awarded
the Palmetto Cross âfor exceptionally outstanding service while serving in the South Carolina militia between 1870 and 1877â on May 13, 2002 â the 140th anniversary of his heroic capture of the Planter.
Robert Smalls was a hero, and his story deserves to be recognized by people throughout the country. He was a great Republican, an even better man, and one of the greatest Americans in history.
