Robert Smalls

Uncommon card · No. 115194

Robert Smalls (April 5, 1839 – February 23, 1915) was an American politician who was born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina. During the American Civil War, the still enslaved Smalls commandeered a Confederate transport ship in Charleston Harbor and sailed it from the Confederate-controlled waters of the harbor to the U.S. blockade that surrounded it. He then piloted the ship to the Union-controlled enclave in the Beaufort–Port Royal–Hilton Head area, where it became a Union warship. In the process, he freed himself, his crew, and their families. His example and persuasion helped convince President Abraham Lincoln to accept black soldiers into the Union Army. After the Civil War, Smalls returned to Beaufort and became a politician, winning election as a Republican to the South Carolina Legislature and the United States House of Representatives during the Reconstruction era. He authored state legislation providing for South Carolina to have the first free and compulsory public school...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Mathew Brady, Public domain