The Jacobs Report: Robert Smalls

On Kids Radio, reporter Dale Jacobs hosts The Jacobs Report, a program about remarkable people worth knowing. Standing in the gallery at Whit's End, he introduces a guest who has stepped out of a framed picture on the wall: Robert Smalls, a former slave who became a Civil War hero and, later, a United States Congressman. Through the interview, Smalls tells the story of his daring escape, and the scenes of his past come to life.

Born into slavery in 1839, Robert was sent to Charleston, South Carolina at age twelve. He loved the sea, found work on the docks, and worked his way up to boat pilot aboard the Planter, a Confederate steamboat that carried military supplies around Charleston Harbor. Along the way he gained something priceless: a deep knowledge of the harbor's waters, forts, and signals.

Robert's masters treated him decently, but his wife Hannah served a cruel one. One night Robert finds Hannah weeping because a woman named Queenie has been sold away from her three little children simply for making up a room the wrong way. Terrified the same could happen to her, Hannah asks what will become of their own family. Robert promises that he will never let her or their children be sold, no matter what it takes. From that moment, he watches for any chance to win their freedom.

The chance begins to take shape when the war heats up. A Confederate order requires the Planter's three white officers to sleep on board every night, but the easygoing Captain Relyea, fond of exclamations like "Moonlight and magnolias," decides the rule is a nuisance and trusts the ship to Robert and his crew of fellow slaves. Robert has also heard how fifteen slaves once escaped to the Union fleet in General Ripley's rowboat, and he becomes convinced a bolder version of that plan can work. His idea stuns the crew: instead of sneaking past the harbor's guns, they will steam out in plain sight, pretending to be on a routine mission, with Robert wearing the captain's own coat and hat in the darkness. Some call the plan crazy, but Robert reminds them that they run the ship every day and that this may be their only real chance to be free men. One by one, the crew agrees, and Robert insists that no one leaves without the families.

Disaster nearly strikes when the ship's chief engineer, groggy with drink, overhears the plot and threatens to have them all shot. Before he can act, he collapses in a stupor, and the next morning he cannot remember a thing. He asks to go home sick, removing one more obstacle.

The moment finally comes after the Planter takes on four large guns, ammunition, and firewood bound for the Confederate forts. That evening both the captain and the first mate go home to their wives, leaving Robert in charge for the night. Hannah knows the price of failure is death, but she stands with her husband, telling him, "Where you go, I will go. Where you die, I will die." Robert sends word for the families to gather at a wharf upriver, and as the messenger departs, a fog rolls in like an answer to prayer. Robert gathers the crew and declares, "It's time. We sail into freedom."

Around three in the morning, the crew casts off, raises the Confederate and South Carolina flags, and steams away from the dock. Dressed in the captain's sweaty coat and hat, Robert waves calmly to a guard and a policeman on shore, and they wave back. The ruse is working. The crew collects the women and children at the North Atlantic Wharf, hides them below decks, and heads for the open sea, passing five heavily armed forts whose cannons point straight at them. The greatest test is Fort Sumter itself, its walls towering fifty feet above the water. Instead of steering wide, Robert holds the ship to her normal course and gives the proper signal. After a heart-stopping pause, the fort answers, and the Planter slips past.

Now comes the final danger: to the Union blockade, the Planter looks like an enemy warship charging straight at them. Robert has Hannah fetch a white sheet, pulls down the Confederate flags, and hoists the sheet in surrender, but a fresh fog hides it just as shots ring out behind them. When the sun rises and the fog lifts, sailors aboard the USS Onward spot the white flag just in time and hold their fire. Robert hails the warship, announces his intent to surrender, and welcomes Lieutenant Nichols aboard, presenting him with the ship, its cargo, and the captured guns that had been headed for Fort Sumter. He makes one request: a United States flag to fly, since the Planter is now a U.S. ship. The lieutenant replies, "I think that can be arranged. You've certainly earned it, sir."

Back in the gallery, Dale marvels at the story. Robert reflects that only the hand of the Almighty can explain how they came through so safely. He went on to become a boat pilot, businessman, and Congressman, though prejudice and malice blocked his path at every turn. Each obstacle, he says, only strengthened his resolve, carried along by determination, patience, and reliance on the good Lord.