Robert Smalls might just be one of the greatest Americans you have never heard of. I first heard of him in a tweet from Dr. Wilfred Reilly, a political science professor at Kentucky State University, which prompted me to research his life and reach out to Reilly for a lesson.

Smalls was an extremely courageous and fascinating individual. Born into slavery on a South Carolina plantation in 1839, he eventually changed the course of the Civil War.