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

by Cate Lineberry

  By January 1861 Anderson, his men, and their families were running out of food. To reinforce and resupply Anderson, President James Buchanan sent two hundred soldiers and numerous provisions on an unarmed merchant ship, the Star of the West. But the ship was never able to deliver either. As the vessel approached the fort, Charles J. Relyea, then captain of the General Clinch (and later captain of the Planter), signaled the arrival of the Star. Confederate cadets from the Citadel, South Carolina’s military college in Charleston, were manning an artillery battery on Morris Island and saw Relyea’s signal. They opened fire.3 Now under attack, the Star of the West tried to move out of range of the guns, but it was soon also dodging fire from Fort Moultrie as Confederate patrol vessels closed in on the merchant ship. Anderson had not been expecting the Star of the West and was unable to offer assistance in time.

  While the Confederates allowed the families of the soldiers to leave in early February, the standoff between the North and the South continued for months as South Carolina’s leaders wrangled with Washington. As the negotiations failed, other Southern states eager to preserve the institution of slavery joined South Carolina in breaking from the Union.

  By the time Lincoln took office in March 1861, the Union troops at Fort Sumter were in dire need of food and supplies, and the Confederacy’s anger at the continued occupation of the fort was growing. As the situation escalated during the next month, Lincoln announced that he would send provisions to Fort Sumter, which infuriated the Confederacy. In response the Confederates ordered the federal troops to surrender, but Anderson steadfastly refused. On April 12, 1861, Confederate forces fired the first shots of the Civil War on Fort Sumter.4

  The war had arrived. Many of Charleston’s white residents watched excitedly from the rooftops of their grand homes as Fort Sumter fell to the Confederate bombardment.5 A headline in the Charleston Mercury called it a “Splendid Pyrotechnic Exhibition,” and the paper declared that “the Administration of the old Government may abandon at once and forever its vain and visionary hope of forcible control over the Confederate States.”6

  * * *

  Smalls almost certainly watched the attack and the many celebrations that erupted in Charleston’s streets during the next few days. Seeing the Confederates rejoice at their victory may have even strengthened his determination to flee.

  Another development also added to Smalls’ already ample motivation to escape. He and Hannah now had a son they named Robert Smalls, Jr. The boy, who was sometimes called Beauregard, had been born around February 1861, just two months before the outbreak of the war.7

  Smalls and Hannah had not yet earned enough to buy the freedom of Hannah and Elizabeth, although they were still trying to do so. And with the birth of Robert, Jr., Kingman was likely to up the price. Until Smalls could find a way to get his family out of Charleston, he would continue to earn as much money as possible in the hope of keeping his family together.

  When Smalls was twenty-two, a new opportunity for work presented itself. In June 1861 he joined the crew of the Planter as a deckhand. In this new position Smalls earned $16 a month from John Ferguson, the owner of the steamer. Most of it went directly to Henry McKee, but Smalls had negotiated with McKee to keep one dollar for himself. Even so small an amount helped Smalls get closer to Kingman’s asking price.

  * * *

  As the summer heat intensified, so did the war. In July 1861 a Confederate victory at the Battle of Bull Run near Manassas, Virginia, made many in Washington, D.C., finally understand that the fighting would not end as quickly as they had predicted.8 Now the government grew increasingly concerned that slave labor was providing the South with a distinct advantage. To remedy this Congress authorized the first Confiscation Act in August, which allowed the Union to seize any enslaved people used to aid the rebellion. It was a small but significant step toward universal emancipation.9

  Passage of the act meant slaves seized by the Union were no longer obligated in any way to their former masters, but they also were not emancipated. They were considered “contrabands.” Whether they should be granted their freedom was still a matter of intense debate nationally. Some whites questioned whether the country had the right to free anyone from slavery, given that the Dred Scott decision said that people of African ancestry, whether free or enslaved, could never become citizens of the United States. Others argued that freeing the enslaved could end any chance of bringing the seceded states back into the Union.

  The term contraband was freshly coined. It had originated a few months earlier after the Union major general Benjamin Butler, a lawyer by trade, refused to return three young enslaved men seeking refuge after they had rowed to Fort Monroe at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay one night in May 1861. The men were field hands forced by the Confederacy to build an artillery emplacement in the dunes across the water from the fort, and they were about to be sent to North Carolina to build more fortifications. Butler ignored the Fugitive Slave Act and refused to send the men to the Confederate colonel demanding their return.10

  Butler was not an abolitionist, but he thought it foolish to return these men to the Confederacy, where they would be severely punished and perhaps forced to work against the Union again. Instead, Butler argued, the Fugitive Slave Act no longer applied to Virginia since it had recently seceded and was no longer under the protection of the Constitution. Butler also argued that he had the right to seize any enemy property that was being used against the country. Within days dozens of contrabands had arrived at Fort Monroe, including women and children. By June five hundred more people had arrived.

  Lincoln and his cabinet wrestled with how to respond. At the time Lincoln’s main focus was to preserve the Union, which he could do only by placating the slave states that had not seceded. These states, also known as border states, included Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, and Missouri. (West Virginia, which would not be admitted to the Union until June 1863, would also become a border state.) Although Lincoln thought slavery was unjust, at the time he believed the way to end slavery was to send blacks out of the country, to Africa or Central America. Lincoln also believed that his role as president required him to uphold the law of the land, which meant not interfering with slavery. In his inaugural address a few months earlier, he had said, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”11

  Others, including men like the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who had once been enslaved, disagreed and argued that emancipation should be a major aim of the war and would help the Union succeed. “The very stomach of this rebellion is the negro in the form of a slave,” Douglass wrote in 1861. “Arrest that hoe in the hands of the negro, and you smite the rebellion in the very seat of its life.”12 Lincoln would eventually agree.

  On May 30 Secretary of War Simon Cameron wrote to Major General Butler to say the Lincoln administration had approved his decision not to return the three men. Cameron’s letter, however, left many questions unanswered. In his closing remarks he wrote, “The question of their final disposition will be reserved for further determination.”13 Were these men, women, and children free, or had they just gone from one master to another?

  Their future would remain unclear for some time. But few, if any, of the formerly enslaved were aware of the distinction. Once they made it to Union lines, they simply celebrated their freedom.14

  * * *

  By the fall of 1861, as the country braced for a long and bloody war, Smalls was a tested member of the Planter’s crew. The vessel’s white officers had noted Smalls’ skills on the water and had promoted him to wheelman. Ferguson was now leasing the steamer to the Confederacy, and the crew was kept busy transporting soldiers and military supplies. They were also getting used to their new captain, Relyea, who often wore a wide-brimmed straw hat when he was on the water.

  While Smalls adapted to his new duties and his new commanding office
r, he continued to look for opportunities to escape. It was an especially anxious time in Charleston, as most residents, white and black alike, knew that the city was considered the spiritual capital of the Confederacy and therefore was a prime target for the Union. They were right to be anxious.

  To enforce the blockade that Lincoln had put in place against the Confederacy, the Navy desperately needed Southern resupply ports for its coal-fired steamships. On October 29, after months of planning, the largest armada ever assembled by the U.S. Navy set sail from Fort Monroe in Hampton Roads, Virginia. The fleet, formally the South Atlantic Blocking Squadron, was heading south to attempt to capture a deepwater harbor to serve as a fuel and provisioning depot for the ships blockading the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

  As newspapers reported the departure of the fleet—17 warships, 25 colliers, 33 transports, 157 big guns, and more than 12,000 men—the Confederates could only guess its destination. They knew that South Carolina’s Port Royal, one of the largest ports in the South, was a potential target.15

  In charge of the armada was fifty-eight-year-old Cmdre. Samuel Francis Du Pont, a man who would become an important figure in Robert Smalls’ life. He was one of the most respected officers in the Navy and a member of the famed Delaware family. At six feet four inches he was unusually tall, but his perfect posture made him seem even taller. His salt-and-pepper muttonchops, high forehead, and straight nose added to his distinguished appearance.

  Accompanying Du Pont on the mission was Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Sherman, forty-eight, of Newport, Rhode Island. While Du Pont was in charge of naval forces, Sherman was in charge of land forces. Throughout the war Sherman’s name would be confused with that of Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman of Ohio, who would lead the famous and destructive March to the Sea in late 1864. Thomas Sherman, however, was a well-respected and accomplished soldier in his own right and had received a brevet of gallantry for his actions during the Mexican War.16

  The destination of Du Pont and Sherman, the South would soon learn, was Port Royal Sound near Beaufort. This strategic sound, a deep natural harbor on South Carolina’s coast between Charleston and Savannah, Georgia, would provide the Union with the critical supply depot it needed and a base for military operations.

  To capture Port Royal, however, the Union would have to face the two Confederate forts that straddled the wide inlet that formed the entrance to the sound. Both forts had recently been constructed by slave labor to protect the harbor in case of a Union attack. Fort Walker on Hilton Head Island formed the southern shore of the inlet, while Fort Beauregard was located at Bay Point on St. Phillips Island and commanded the northern shore. The two forts were more than two miles apart, and between them mounted thirty-nine guns.

  Just getting the South Atlantic Blocking Squadron to Port Royal proved more difficult than either Du Pont or Sherman had anticipated. On its way the armada encountered a violent storm that scattered the vessels and destroyed three cargo ships and one transport.17 The losses included several crew members, but it could have been much worse. “As the vessels rejoined reports came in of disasters, I expected to hear of many, but when the severity of the gale and the character of the vessels are considered, we have only cause for great thankfulness,” Du Pont wrote.18

  Du Pont’s flagship, the steam frigate the Wabash, and twenty-five other ships finally anchored off Port Royal on November 4, 1861. The approach of the massive armada panicked the Confederates. As soldiers at Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard scrambled to prepare for an onslaught, Gen. Roswell Ripley, who was headquartered in Charleston, warned the citizens of Beaufort and the surrounding area to evacuate. With the forced assistance of their slaves, families rushed to pack belongings and bury the family silver and other valuables they could not carry with them. For many of the enslaved it would be the last duty they would perform for their masters.19

  * * *

  The Union attack was supposed to be a joint ground-naval assault, but the storm had derailed those plans. Crucial ammunition had been lost along with many of the surfboats the Union had planned to use to land troops. Du Pont forged ahead anyway and opened a solely naval offensive with the idea that once the Union had captured both forts, Sherman’s men could land and take control of the area.

  A naval attack lacking support from ground forces was generally considered a poor military strategy at the time. One cannon on land was thought to equal four to five on board a ship under sail, as it was difficult for warships to maintain the fixed positions needed to accurately determine the range and direction of their targets. To do this, the ships had to anchor within range of enemy shore batteries, which made them easy marks. The brilliant Du Pont, however, realized that the greater maneuverability of steam-powered vessels rendered this conventional wisdom outdated. Instead of anchoring his ships, he could keep them moving during the assault. Also, Du Pont’s ships had larger guns than those in the Confederate forts and more of them.

  On the morning of November 7, 1861, Du Pont’s flagship, Wabash, along with fifteen warships, began moving toward the entrance to Port Royal Sound in two parallel columns in a line of battle.20 As they entered the inlet with Fort Beauregard on their starboard flank and Fort Walker to port, Du Pont’s ships engaged both forts in a furious exchange of cannon fire that lasted well into the afternoon. The Union ships concentrated their initial fire on Fort Beauregard as they passed within cannon range. Then, turning in a half circle to port, they crossed the inlet and bombarded Fort Walker. Once they had completed their pass of Fort Walker, the line of ships turned in another half circle to port and passed by Fort Beauregard again. The Union repeated this maneuver around an elliptical path within the inlet until the Confederate guns went silent at about 2:30 that afternoon.21

  Four hours after the fighting began, the Confederates, who numbered about four thousand, including reinforcements, abandoned both forts. The battle had been swift, with relatively few casualties: the Confederates lost 11 men and suffered 48 wounded, while the Union lost 8 men and claimed just 23 wounded.22

  After months of preparation, a disastrous storm, and a quickly won battle that changed naval warfare, Du Pont had captured the harbor the Union desperately needed. Port Royal Sound was now under Union control, marking the first major Union naval victory of the war.23

  * * *

  Many of Beaufort’s white residents started fleeing town on the day of the attack, piling onto a paddle wheeler that took them and whatever they could carry to Charleston.24 Other white residents left by horse and carriage, jamming the main road out of town. They fled in such a hurry that they left dinners on tables, pantries full of food, and hoopskirts and hats in their wardrobes. It was a quick but emotional departure for many, who had no idea if they would ever return. “The ladies of Beaufort almost broke their hearts with grief at leaving their splendid homes,” The New York Times reported.25

  Within a day or two of the battle, almost all the white residents of Beaufort District had abandoned the area, including most of Henry McKee’s family, who would eventually go to Columbia, South Carolina. The slaves would tell Union troops that the whites had run away more out of fear of a slave revolt than concern about the Union troops.26

  A few house servants fled with the whites, but the majority of the enslaved people refused to leave, preferring to take their chances with the new arrivals. One who remained behind was Smalls’ mother, Lydia. Most, if not all, of Henry McKee’s more than one hundred other slaves remained behind as well.

  Some African American men and women had simply ignored threats from their owners that the Union would sell them to Cuban sugar plantations, where the work was much more grueling and the life expectancy of slaves far shorter. Others had hidden in the swamps, fields, and woods.

  Most white residents had been in such a hurry to flee that they did not try to force their slaves to follow them. At least one planter, Capt. John Fripp of St. Helena Island, had showed some concern for the people he was leaving behind. A Union sympath
izer and one of the wealthiest men in the area, Fripp told them to stay and work the provision crops rather than the cotton. If they followed him inland, he warned, they might starve.27

  The white men who belonged to the local militia had been busy doing what they could to protect the town’s assets from falling into Union hands. Henry McKee, a lieutenant in the 12th South Carolina Militia Regiment, had helped hide six barrels of gunpowder from the Beaufort arsenal at a nearby plantation during the Union’s attack on the sound before he and his men left town.28

  Despite the initial panic, Union soldiers did not arrive in Beaufort until two days after they had captured the sound. Their first focus was occupying Hilton Head. In the meantime former plantation slaves, now free from their captors for the first time in their lives, ransacked and occupied Beaufort’s extravagant homes. They took food, clothing, and anything else left behind as they reveled in their freedom and gathered what they could to help themselves and their families.29

  While chaos broke out in town, some white residents returned to their Beaufort plantations to burn their valuable Sea Island cotton so the Union could not profit from it. Henry McKee’s large cotton crop, which would have been worth a small fortune, was among those burned.30 The year before, Sea Island cotton had sold for 47 cents per pound, the highest price since the 1818 peak of 63 cents per pound. The estimated value of the entire 1860 Sea Island cotton crop was more than $7 million.31

  A handful of white townsmen also sneaked back into Beaufort to destroy armaments at the arsenal, secure additional valuables they had left behind, and check on their homes. When Thomas Elliott returned to his house in Beaufort, he found his former slaves celebrating. One woman was playing the piano “like the very devil,” while two other women were “upstairs dancing away famously.” All the houses, Elliott wrote, had been “completely turned upside down and inside out. The organs in both churches were broken up and the churches themselves robbed of many articles which were deposited there for safe keeping.”32