author
Robert Smalls
1839–1915
Born into slavery in South Carolina, he became a Civil War hero by steering a Confederate ship to Union forces and winning freedom for himself, his family, and others. He later turned that daring act into a life of public service, serving as a lawmaker during Reconstruction.
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About the author
Born in Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1839, Robert Smalls was enslaved as a child and later hired out to work in Charleston. During the Civil War, he became famous in 1862 when he took control of the Confederate transport ship Planter in Charleston Harbor and piloted it past Confederate defenses to the Union blockade, bringing his family and other enslaved people to freedom.
That escape made him a national figure. He went on to serve the Union war effort and became known as the first Black captain of a vessel in U.S. service. After the war, he returned to South Carolina and built a long career in public life, serving in the state legislature and in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Smalls is remembered not only for a single act of courage, but for the way he kept fighting for citizenship, education, and political rights after emancipation. His life connects the story of the Civil War to the unfinished struggle for equality that followed.