* * *
Smalls was a stocky young man, likely of black and white descent, who favored a goatee that emphasized an oval face.12 Whether it was his determined gaze or his years of being enslaved, he looked much older than twenty-three.
For the past year Smalls had been a trusted and valued member of the Planter’s enslaved crew. The white officers in charge of the vessel had noticed Smalls’ skills on the water and quickly promoted him from deckhand to wheelman. With this promotion Smalls essentially functioned as the ship’s pilot, a difficult job that required navigating the shifting sandbars of Charleston Harbor and the shallow, twisting rivers and inlets that fed into it. But it all came easily to Smalls, who knew every curve of the surrounding waterways. Although Smalls had become known as one of the best pilots in the area, the Confederates refused to give him, or any enslaved man, the title of pilot.
Smalls was part of a crew of ten that included three white officers—the captain, Charles J. Relyea, forty-seven; the first mate, Samuel Smith Hancock, twenty-eight; and the engineer, Samuel Z. Pitcher, thirty-four.13 None of these men had grown up in the South. Relyea was born and raised in the state of New York; Hancock was from Glasgow, Scotland; and Pitcher was from Norwich, England. And although they served aboard the Confederate steamer as officers, they were not enlisted as officers in the Confederate Navy. They were private contractors who reported directly to the vessel’s owner, a dark-haired thirty-five-year-old Scot named John Ferguson.14
Ferguson, who was said to possess “the frame and strength almost of a Samson,” had lived in Charleston for years. He and his wife, Adelaide, had climbed the social ranks of the city as his reputation and wealth had grown. In addition to the Planter, he owned three other transport steamers and had become one of the city’s most prominent residents. “He was a man of large business capacity, and while he was always bold to conceive, he was equally at all times as fearless to act and carry out his plans,” wrote one of Ferguson’s acquaintances.15
In addition to Smalls, the rest of the crew included six other enslaved black men who ranged in age from their teens to middle age and acted as engineers and deckhands. John Small, who was not related to Smalls, and Alfred Gourdine served as engineers, while the deckhands were David Jones, Jack Gibbes, Gabriel Turner, and Abraham Jackson.16 Three of these men belonged to Ferguson, but the others, including Smalls, had different masters who “hired out” their time.17
Ferguson had commissioned construction of the Planter from a local shipyard two years earlier. She was made of the area’s famous live oaks, as well as red cedar, and had three decks, sleeping quarters for the crew, and storage space for supplies and cargo. Oscillating steam engines on the main deck powered each of two paddle wheels on either side of the steamer, an arrangement that gave her greater maneuverability. The vessel’s navigation was controlled from the pilothouse, and a single large smokestack emerged from the top deck in front of the pilothouse, emitting steam and smoke from the wood-burning engines. Of particular value was the Planter’s ability to operate in less than four feet of water, which meant she could navigate the notoriously shallow waterways of South Carolina’s coast.
When the ship was new, Ferguson had captained her himself and used the vessel to transport cotton and passengers between Charleston and nearby Georgetown as well as to landings on the Pee Dee River. Now he was leasing the vessel to the Confederacy for $125 per day, a hefty sum that added to Ferguson’s increasing wealth.18
Under the lease the crew’s duties included carrying supplies, weapons, men, and dispatches around the harbor and the surrounding area for the Southern cause. In the past year the men had also surveyed the sandbars along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida; helped destroy the federal lighthouse at South Carolina’s Hunting Island to prevent the Union from using it for navigation; and helped lay mines, known then as torpedoes, in nearby rivers to protect against a Union attack.19
The Confederacy had armed the Planter with a 32-pound pivot gun on her foredeck for long-range targets and a 24-pound howitzer on her afterdeck for short-range targets.20 It was just enough firepower for the Planter to defend herself in an emergency.
By September 1861 Ferguson had stepped down as captain of the Planter and appointed Relyea to take his place. They had been business partners for years, and Relyea had captained other steamers in the area, including the General Clinch.21
While Relyea was captain of the General Clinch in January 1861, he had signaled the Confederate battery at Morris Island that the Star of the West was approaching the harbor.22 The U.S. government had hired the civilian steamship to bring supplies and reinforcements to Fort Sumter, then occupied by Union forces and under siege by the Confederates. After the Confederates received Relyea’s signal, they fired on the Star of the West from Morris Island and Fort Moultrie and forced the unarmed steamer to turn around. The Civil War began just three months later when Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter.23
As the new captain of the Planter, Relyea occasionally left the ship in the hands of the black crew overnight so he and his officers could stay with their wives and children in their homes in the city. Relyea may have done so because he trusted his crew, but it is more likely that he, like many whites in the South, and even the North, simply did not think that enslaved men would be capable of pulling off a mission as dangerous and difficult as commandeering a Confederate vessel. It would be nearly impossible for anyone to take a steamer in a harbor so well guarded and difficult to navigate; few whites at the time could imagine that enslaved African Americans would be able to do it.
By leaving the ship in the crew’s care, Relyea was violating recent Confederate military orders, General Orders, No. 5, which required white officers and their crews to stay on board, day and night, while the vessel was docked at the wharf so they could be ready to go at any minute.24 But even beyond his decision to leave the crew alone with the ship, Relyea himself was a key element of Smalls’ plan.
The unusual idea of how to get away with taking the Planter had come to Smalls that spring when, in the captain’s absence, another crew member had playfully placed Relyea’s wide-brimmed straw hat on Smalls’ head. Smalls was stocky like Relyea, and the crew member joked that when Smalls was wearing the hat, he resembled the captain.
In that seemingly inconsequential moment Smalls realized he had finally found a way to escape that would allow him to bring his family with him. He knew that steaming the vessel through the harbor undetected would be nearly impossible, but if he wore Relyea’s hat in the dark, early hours on one of the mornings when the white officers were absent, sentries guarding the harbor might mistake him for the captain and allow the Planter and those hidden on board to pass without interference.
Relyea frequently left his hat in the pilothouse when he was not on duty, so getting access to it would be easy. Also, Smalls would be standing in the pilothouse, and the Planter’s smokestack, positioned directly in front of him, would help obscure the color of his skin.
Of course Smalls could not be sure that wearing the hat would deceive the guards, yet he had to try. But before he went any further, he also needed to be certain his wife, Hannah, was willing to join him. The plan was worth the incredible risks only if Hannah and the children escaped with him.
When Smalls told Hannah about his idea, she wanted to know what would happen if he were caught. He did not hold back the truth. “I shall be shot,” he said. While all the men on board would almost certainly face death, the women and children would be severely punished and perhaps sold to different owners.
Hannah, who had a kind face and a strong spirit, remained calm and decisive. She told her husband: “It is a risk, dear, but you and I, and our little ones must be free. I will go, for where you die, I will die.”25 Both were willing to do whatever it took to win their children’s freedom.
Smalls, of course, also had to approach his fellow crew members. Sharing his plan with them was in itself a huge risk. Even talking about esca
pe was incredibly dangerous in Confederate Charleston. If someone revealed the plot either purposefully or accidentally, Smalls, and perhaps the whole group, would pay a huge price. Smalls, however, had little choice in the matter. He could not operate the large steamer on his own, and he could not take the vessel using other men and keep the plan a secret from the original crew. His only option was to recruit the men and trust them.
The crew met secretly with Smalls sometime in late April or early May and discussed the idea, but their individual decisions could not have been easy. All knew that whatever they decided in that moment would affect the rest of their lives. It was still quite possible that the Confederacy would win the war. If it did, staying behind meant enduring lives of servitude. Joining Smalls, however, could result in their capture and severe punishment or death. Even if they succeeded, they were also putting at risk anyone who might be suspected of helping them. Once the Confederates learned of the escape, they would want to punish anyone who had been involved.
The promise of freedom was so strong, and the thought of remaining in slavery so abhorrent, that these considerations ultimately convinced the men to join Smalls. Before the meeting ended, all had agreed to take part in the escape and to be ready to act whenever Smalls decided it was time. Until then, they promised not to reveal the plan to anyone, not even to their families. Hannah, of course, already knew, but the other women who would join them that evening would not know until the last moment.26 The crew simply could not risk word getting out.
Three other men who would join in the escape also likely attended the meeting. One was Abram Allston, the brother of Jack Gibbes, a deckhand. Allston, forty-four and enslaved, worked as a hired boatman at nearby Fort Moultrie; he was a useful addition because of his experience on the water. The other two were William Morrison, forty-three, and Samuel Chisholm, twenty-two.27 These men were probably trusted neighbors, friends, or relatives of those working on the Planter, but, like Allston, they were not regular crew members. Morrison, who had secretly learned to read and write, was a tinsmith and plumber by trade and was owned by Emile Poincignon, a tinsmith in Charleston. In addition to gaining his freedom, Morrison was motivated by the idea of once again seeing his wife and two children, who lived in Montgomery, Alabama.28 Chisholm was likely working on a nearby steamer called the Etiwan that would have a critical role in the escape.
Remaining calm and quiet would take patience and courage as Smalls’ crew waited for the day he would signal it was time to put their plan into action. In the meantime they became worried about one of their own.
That man was the deckhand David Jones. “He was given to talk, and whenever he got hold of whiskey he wanted to tell all he knew,” said Gourdine, one of the engineers. When the crew realized Jones was losing his resolve to keep quiet, their concern grew into outright fear. “He was all right at first, but after a few days he began to weaken and predict disaster, and was evidently ready to give the whole thing away,” Gourdine said. “In this emergency we got at him one night and threatened his life if he did not brace up, and thus frightened him into being steadfast.” With so much at stake the men could not take any chances and were prepared to do almost anything to preserve their secret.29
Although Smalls and the crew had a lot of factors working against them, they were fortunate in their timing. If the Planter reached a Union ship, its sailors were now required to provide help or face punishment from the Navy. Just two months earlier Congress had approved an additional article of war that forbade all military personnel from returning fugitive slaves to their Confederate owners. Until then, the Union had had no consistent military policy on what to do about enslaved people who escaped the South. Many had been sent back to the nightmares they had fled, pursuant to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required their return to their owners.
* * *
On the afternoon of May 12, 1862, just hours before the escape, the men on the Planter finished two grueling weeks of intense labor. They had been removing cannon from Cole’s Island near the mouth of the Stono River, loading them onto the steamer and transporting them to James Island just across the Ashley River from Charleston. Moving the guns was part of the Confederates’ tactic of concentrating their depleted troops and weapons in strategic areas around Charleston. In doing so, however, they were also leaving the entrance to the Stono River open to a Union invasion. Smalls noted this critical weakness in Charleston’s defenses.
Earlier that day the crew had picked up four massive cannon—a banded 42-pound rifled gun, an 8-inch Columbiad, an 8-inch howitzer, and a 32-pound rifled gun—as well as a 10-inch Columbiad gun carriage and 200 pounds of ammunition.30 The guns, which weighed thousands of pounds, had been damaged during the bombardment of Fort Sumter in April 1861, but cannon were now so scarce that General Ripley had recently had them repaired. The crew’s orders were to deliver the munitions the following morning to Fort Ripley, which was under construction in the harbor.
With the cannon on board, it was an opportune time to seize the vessel. At some point Smalls became aware that the white officers planned to leave the ship that night as they had previously done. If they did, and if Smalls’ plans were successful, he could deliver to Union forces not only a valuable steamer, but also desperately needed munitions.
It would be a remarkable feat. Most enslaved men and women trying to reach the Union fleets blockading Southern ports rowed to the vessels in canoes. No civilian, black or white, had ever taken a Confederate vessel of this size and turned it over to the Union. Nor had any civilian ever delivered so many priceless guns.
Just a few weeks earlier, a group of fifteen slaves in Charleston had surprised the city by seizing a barge from the waterfront and rowing it to the Union fleet. The barge belonged to General Ripley, the same commander who used the Planter as his dispatch boat. When it was found to be missing, the Confederates were furious. They were also embarrassed at being outsmarted by slaves. Nonetheless, they failed to take any extra precautions in securing other vessels at the wharf. The caper may even have inspired Smalls. But seizing a massive steamer loaded with heavy artillery pieces would be far more difficult than commandeering a barge.31
Smalls also may have decided to act when he did because he knew that the Confederate guard boat that monitored the entrance to the harbor was temporarily out of commission.32
In addition, Smalls knew that Charleston would be placed under martial law the following day in anticipation of a Union attack. Martial law gave the military authority over the civilian population and would bring heightened security that would make executing the plan to commandeer the Planter even more difficult. With martial law but hours away, this could be their last real chance for escape.
Smalls quietly let the men know his intentions. As the reality of what they were about to do descended on them, they were overwhelmed by fears of what might happen. Even so, they pressed forward.
Almost immediately, they encountered an unexpected problem. As the white officers prepared to leave, the first mate, Hancock, suddenly announced that he would sleep on the steamer that night. The news came as a great shock, but the crew could not reveal their disappointment and frustration. They could only go about their tasks as routinely as possible while deciding their next steps.
Smalls had no intention of abandoning his plan. “He wouldn’t give up … saying that he would either lock the mate in his stateroom or kill him,” Gourdine said. “It was finally decided to go ahead, but we had scarcely come to that conclusion when the man went ashore and thus saved his bacon. If he had remained with us, he’d either [have] been carried out to sea as a captive or thrown overboard as a corpse.”
Once the crew was alone, they faced yet another problem. Two deckhands announced that they had changed their minds. Jones, the talkative drinker, and Gibbes had decided they would not participate in the escape. The risks were simply too great for them.
Although the rest of the crew was angry and worried that Jones and Gibbes would reveal Smalls�
� plans, Smalls and the others quickly regrouped from this latest setback as the men left the ship.
Thanks to the three additional men the crew had invited to join in—Allston, Chisholm, and Morrison, who probably arrived shortly after the officers left—they would have enough hands to operate the steamer.33
* * *
As the hour grew later, the men kept watch for the rest of their party. Hannah, of course, knew about the plan, but the other women did not. They had simply been told to come to the vessel to visit with the men, just as the women had done many times in the past.34
Hannah soon arrived with Elizabeth and Robert, Jr., in tow. Also with Hannah, who was about twelve years older than her husband, was her teenaged daughter from another relationship, Clara Jones. Hannah’s oldest daughter, Charlotte, who was only a few years younger than Smalls, was not with the group that night. She had stayed behind with her five-year-old daughter, Emily, and Emily’s father, a man named Brown.35
Joining Smalls’ family were the wife and daughter of the first engineer, John Small. Two other women, Lavinia Wilson, who was owned by a cashier at a Charleston bank, and Anna White, for whom details are not known, made up the rest of the group.36
As time passed and a fog descended over the harbor, partially obscuring a nearly full moon, the women became suspicious. The men would not let them leave the Planter, even though they needed to be back at their quarters before Charleston’s nine o’clock slave curfew.
It was then that Smalls decided to reveal the plot. The women met the news with alarm and concern. “They didn’t know much about war, but they knew enough to realize that every man of us would be shot or hung if the attempt was a failure,” Gourdine said. The women’s fear soon got the best of them as they realized the magnitude of what they had stumbled into, but Smalls remained steady. “They cried and prayed and entreated, and if Smalls hadn’t had the grit of a bulldog, he would have let go,” Gourdine said. “It took an hour to calm those women down, and then we locked them in the staterooms and threatened to kill the first one who made a loud noise.” It was a drastic move, but the plan had been set in motion and there was no turning back.37
Be Free or Die--The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero Page 2