0:04 [SPEAKER_00]: How have I never heard of Robert Smalls? 0:07 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm betting you have an either. 0:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Smalls was an antebellum slave in real life action hero who fought without permission in the Civil War and pulled off one of the most daring heists in American military history. 0:23 [SPEAKER_00]: Smalls courage and intelligence, single-handedly changed the way Abraham Lincoln viewed the enlistment of black troops in the Union Army. 0:32 [SPEAKER_00]: And soon, after his escape to freedom, an initial wave of 5,000 black troops were allowed to enlist. 0:39 [SPEAKER_00]: But in 1862, Smalls was still a slave, fighting against his well in the Confederate Navy. 0:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Someone ironically, he was the pilot of the CSS planter, a ship used to transport troops and lay naval mines and defense of Confederate harbors. 0:58 [SPEAKER_00]: I say ironically because the whole theory of Southern slavery depended on this idea that people of color were inferior and that's a hard claim to make when you're giving them the most skillful and important jobs on the ship. 1:13 [SPEAKER_00]: But in wartime, you can't afford to let your biases deprive you of the best possible sailors. 1:19 [SPEAKER_00]: And smalls became a trusted leader among the crew. 1:23 [SPEAKER_00]: So trusted that at times they would leave him alone on the ship, while they went ashore to sleep, with their wives and girlfriends. 1:31 [SPEAKER_00]: These sailors knew smalls was smart. 1:34 [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't know he was smarter than they were. 1:36 [SPEAKER_00]: And one night when the whole white crew was ashore, hooking up with their significant others, smalls stole their ship. 1:43 [SPEAKER_00]: The plan had been in motion for weeks. 1:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And just days earlier, smalls and his fellow slave sailors had brought their families into the loop and arranged to bring them aboard for this race to freedom. 1:55 [SPEAKER_00]: And when their families learned of this plan, 1:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Their reaction was somewhat surprising, many of these women in their children prefer to stay in slavery. 2:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Their risk was simply too great. 2:06 [SPEAKER_00]: If they were caught, it would mean the ruthless execution of all involved. 2:11 [SPEAKER_00]: One writer, academic and historian, Tim White, described the scene. 2:17 [SPEAKER_02]: This was the first the women and children had heard of it, although small recently had told his wife Hannah. 2:22 [SPEAKER_02]: She had known that small's long to escape, but hadn't realized that he was formulating a plan and intended to execute it. 2:29 [SPEAKER_02]: She was taken aback, but quickly regained her composure and told him. 2:34 [SPEAKER_01]: It is a risk, dear, but you and I, and our little ones must be free. 2:39 [SPEAKER_01]: I will go, for where you die, I will die. 2:43 [SPEAKER_02]: The other women were less steadfast. 2:45 [SPEAKER_02]: They cried in screened when they learned what they had stumbled into, and the men struggled to quiet them. 2:50 [SPEAKER_02]: Later, once the shock had worn off, those women admitted that they were glad for a chance at freedom. 2:56 [SPEAKER_00]: At 2am, this unlikely crew of conspirators, 9 men, 5 women, and 3 children, spring into action. 3:05 [SPEAKER_00]: Smalls dressed himself in the captain's uniform, and signature wide-brand straw hat, and assumed the familiar posture of the captain on the deck. 3:14 [SPEAKER_00]: But instead of reising out of the harbor, as most of us would do, Smalls played a cool. 3:19 [SPEAKER_00]: He sailed slowly and calmly, pulled his hat down over his face, and genius that he was, flashed every appropriate naval signal to passing Confederate captains, and mimicked the swaggering body language of the actual captain, a man named Riley. 3:37 [SPEAKER_00]: In the moonlight shadows of the South Carolina night, he fooled everyone. 3:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Smalls led his crew passed one Confederate fort after another, five in total, before reaching their greatest challenge of all. 3:51 [SPEAKER_00]: White again describes the scene. 3:53 [SPEAKER_02]: As the nearly free slaves approached Fort Sumter, their apprehension began to grow. 3:58 [SPEAKER_02]: It was the most heavily armed of the forts and tended to be manned by the most suspicious soldiers. 4:06 [SPEAKER_02]: When we drew near the fort, every man but Robert Smalls felt his knees giving away, and the women began crying and praying again. 4:13 [SPEAKER_02]: As the planter approached the fort, several men urged Smalls to give it a wide birth. 4:19 [SPEAKER_02]: Smalls refused, saying that such behavior would almost certainly arouse suspicion. 4:23 [SPEAKER_02]: He steered the ship along its normal path, slowly. 4:27 [SPEAKER_02]: As though he were merely enjoying an early morning air and in no particular hurry. 4:32 [SPEAKER_02]: When Fort Sumter flashed the challenge signal, Smalls again gave the correct hand signs. 4:37 [SPEAKER_02]: There was a long pause. 4:39 [SPEAKER_02]: The Fort didn't immediately respond. 4:41 [SPEAKER_02]: And Smalls now expected Canaan fired a shred the planter at any moment. 4:45 [SPEAKER_02]: Finally, the Fort signal that all was well, and Smalls sailed his ship out of the harbor. 4:50 [SPEAKER_00]: While the white crew of the planter slept into the late morning, smalls arrived at the edge of the union blockade. 4:58 [SPEAKER_00]: At the side of this lone confederate ship, a hundred union guns prepared to fire. 5:04 [SPEAKER_00]: A union witness recounted. 5:07 [SPEAKER_02]: Just as the number three port gun was being elevated, someone cried out. 5:11 [SPEAKER_02]: I see something looks like a white flag. 5:14 [SPEAKER_02]: And, 5:14 [SPEAKER_02]: There was something flying on the steamer that would have been white by application of soap and water. 5:20 [SPEAKER_02]: As she neared us, we looked in vain for the face of a white man. 5:24 [SPEAKER_02]: When they discovered that we would not fire on them, there was a rush of contrabands out on the deck. 5:30 [SPEAKER_02]: Some dancing, some singing, let's jump on a round, and others looking towards Fort Sumter, muttering all sorts of maladictions against it and heart-to-sulf, generally. 5:41 [SPEAKER_02]: As the steamer came near, 5:43 [SPEAKER_02]: and under the stern of the onward. 5:46 [SPEAKER_02]: One of the colored men stepped forward, taking off his hat, shouted, good morning, sir. 5:51 [SPEAKER_02]: I've brought you some of the old United States guns, sir. 5:53 [SPEAKER_02]: That man was Robert Smalls. 5:57 [SPEAKER_00]: An American flag was quickly raised to the top of the mast, as the ship was joined in an instant to the US Navy, but Smalls, with his brilliant mind, followed Confederate naval insights, was even more valuable than the planter in its cargo. 6:12 [SPEAKER_00]: He knew everything about the internal defenses of many southern port cities, including the locations of Naval mines and the structural vulnerabilities of Confederate forts. 6:23 [SPEAKER_00]: He provided the U.S. Navy with extensive maps and the official Confederate captains codebook. 6:29 [SPEAKER_00]: The U.S. Navy awarded several thousand dollars to the escaped slaves for their service, and small share came to fifteen hundred dollars, about forty thousand, and today's dollars. 6:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Union leadership was so impressed with smalls. 6:44 [SPEAKER_00]: They began enlisting black soldiers in sailors for the first time during the war. 6:49 [SPEAKER_00]: They gave smalls a U.S. naval ship to pilot, and over the course of the war, he fought in no less than seventeen major battles on behalf of the United States. 6:58 [SPEAKER_00]: He was later promoted to captain of the planter when the white captain of the ship had a meltdown in Rainbow Odeck under heavy fire from Confederate guns. 7:07 [SPEAKER_00]: In an attack on Fort Sumter, small piloted a ship called USS Kiyaka, under heavy, close-range fire from Confederate guns. 7:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Over the course of this fish's battle, the Kiyakak was hit by the 26 shells and due to poor construction, it crumbled under this barrage. 7:26 [SPEAKER_00]: The ship was able to withdraw and suffered only one crew of fatality, due in large part, to small skill as a pilot. 7:34 [SPEAKER_00]: When the war ended in northern victory, Smalls went back to his former hometown of Bufurt, South Carolina, and purchased his former master's home, which had been seized in 1863. 7:45 [SPEAKER_00]: When that man sued him for his former home, the government sided with Smalls, and sent his master packing. 7:51 [SPEAKER_00]: But because Smalls was a better person than all of us, 7:54 [SPEAKER_00]: He actually allowed his former master's widow to live out the rest of her life in her old home, his home, as a gesture of unfathomable kindness. 8:04 [SPEAKER_00]: And this is when small's rarely went to work. 8:06 [SPEAKER_00]: He bought a building in Biumont, for a school for black children, and started a newspaper, and invested in railroads, and opened stores across town to serve the needs of recently freed slaves. 8:18 [SPEAKER_00]: He founded the Republican Party of South Carolina, and ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. 8:23 [SPEAKER_00]: and one repeatedly against white opponents, serving in the 44th, 45th, 47th, 48th, and 49th US Congresses. 8:34 [SPEAKER_00]: He also wrote the legislation, making public education free and mandatory in South Carolina, the first such law in the United States. 8:43 [SPEAKER_00]: In 1915, small died of malaria and diabetes and was buried in the effort. 8:49 [SPEAKER_00]: In the years that followed, tributes sprung up around the country. 8:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Everything from schools to roads and museums have been named after him. 8:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Even a U.S. Army ship and a military fort, the U.S. A.V. 9:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Major General Robert Smalls, and Fort Robert Smalls respectively. 9:08 [SPEAKER_00]: He spent his entire post-war life from the age of 25 to 75, fighting for justice on behalf of the Black community. 9:16 [SPEAKER_02]: One statement in particular, from a session of the South Carolina Legislature, in 1895, feels symbolic of his life as a whole.
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