The Robert
Smalls Legacy Foundation, Inc.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
U.S.
ARMY NAMES SHIP FOR ROBERT SMALLS, BLACK CIVIL WAR HERO, U.S. STATESMAN
First
U.S. Army Vessel Named for a Civil War Hero and for an African American
The Army announced today
that it will name its newest Logistics Support Vessel (LSV-8) the Major
General Robert Smalls, the first U.S. Army vessel named for a Civil War
hero and the first to bear the name of an African American. The vessel will be christened April 21 in
Pascagoula, Mississippi. The LSV-8, now
under construction, is 314 feet long with a beam of 60 feet. With a payload of
2,000 tons, the LSV is the Army’s largest powered watercraft and is used to
transport cargo worldwide. The Army’s fleet of LSV’s plays an important role in re-supplying
soldiers worldwide.
Robert Smalls, a 23-year-old
slave pilot employed by Confederates, commandeered Planter, a rebel transport steamer loaded with armaments, from a
Charleston dock on May 13, 1862. With his wife, children and 12 other slaves
aboard, he gave the correct whistle signal as he passed the harbor’s rebel
forts. Onward, the nearest Union blockading vessel, was preparing to
fire on the approaching ship when Smalls raised a white flag and surrendered.
Union press hailed Smalls as a national hero, calling the ship “the first
trophy from Fort Sumter.” A Congressional bill signed by President Lincoln
awarded prize money to Smalls and his associates.
In August 1862 two Union
generals sent Smalls and missionary Mansfield French to meet with Secretary of
War Stanton and President Lincoln. Their request to recruit 5000 black troops
was soon granted. During a speaking tour of New York to raise support for the
Union cause Smalls was presented an engraved gold medal by “the colored
citizens of New York” for his heroism, love of liberty and patriotism. In 1863,
he was pilot of the ironclad Keokuk
during a failed Union attack on Fort Sumter. Struck 19 times at or below
waterline, Keokuk sank the following
morning moments after the crew was rescued. Later that year, after an act of
bravery under fire, Smalls became the first black captain of a vessel in the
service of the United States.
Taught
to read and write by tutors, after the war Smalls became a major general in the
South Carolina militia, a state legislator, and a five-term U. S. Congressman.
He participated in drafting the constitution of the state in which he had been
a slave. For nearly 20 years he served as U. S. Collector of Customs in
Beaufort, S.C., where he lived as owner in the house in which he had been a
slave. In 1975 the Robert Smalls house was designated a National Historic
Landmark by the Department of the Interior.
In 1996 writer/photographer
Kitt Haley Alexander, then 46, met Dolly Nash, then 71, of Cape May, N. J., at
a Black History Month event in Savannah, Ga. Nash, Smalls’ great-granddaughter,
who spends winters on the property where Smalls was a slave, became the subject
of Alexander’s Master of Fine Arts photographic thesis project. After
conducting source research on Smalls Alexander decided to restore him to
national acclaim and embarked on a seven-year campaign to have a naval vessel
named for him. In his honor, she later established a non-profit foundation with
a much broader goal.
Among some 100 supporters of
the ship-naming initiative are: Mrs. Dorothy Sterling, author, Captain of
the Planter, The Story of Robert Smalls [1958], who performed seminal
research on Smalls and interviewed his son; the late Dr. Edward A. Miller, Jr.,
U.S.A.F., Ret., author, Gullah Statesman – Robert Smalls From Slavery to
Congress, 1839-1915; Mr. Spencer Crew, former Director, National Museum of
American History, Smithsonian Institution; Mr. Richard Moe, President, National
Trust for Historic Preservation; Walter B. Hill, Jr., Ph.D., Senior Archivist,
National Archives and Records Administration; Mr. Raymond W. Kelly, former
Commissioner of Customs, U.S. Customs Service, Department of the Treasury;
Ambassador Edward J. Perkins, Ph.D., former ambassador to the United Nations,
now Executive Director, International Programs Center, University of Oklahoma;
President Benjamin F. Payton, Tuskegee University; Major General John S.
Grinalds, U.S.M.C., Ret., President, The Citadel; President Nathanael Pollard,
Jr., Bowie [Md.] State University; President William Harvey, Hampton [Va.]
University; Professor Rita Dove, educator and Poet Laureate, 1993-95; and the
late Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., U.S.N., Ret., former Chief of Naval
Operations.
Included in the supporters are 39 educators across the nation whose
specialties are African American history and the Civil War and Reconstruction
eras. Of these, three served as historical consultants on the movie, The
Civil War, by Ken Burns: Dr. Ira Berlin, University of Maryland; Dr.
Barbara J. Fields, Columbia University; and author Bernard Weisberger,
Professor Emeritus,
Northwestern University Evanston, Il.
On May 13, 2002, the 140th anniversary of Smalls’ flight to
freedom, the Robert Smalls Legacy Foundation, Inc. and the National Park
Service Fort Sumter Group co-hosted a commemorative event at Fort Moultrie
(which fired on Smalls during his escape) near Charleston, S.C. At the event,
attended by some two hundred, a proclamation declaring May 13 Robert Smalls Day
in South Carolina was read. Brigadier General Harry B. Burchstead, Jr., Deputy
Adjutant General of the South Carolina National Guard, presented Dolly Nash,
Smalls’ great-granddaughter, a Palmetto Cross Medal and posthumous citation for
Smalls’ gallant service in the South Carolina Militia from 1870 to 1877. Never
before had Smalls’ daring escape been memorialized by the state of South
Carolina or by a branch of the federal government.
Robert Smalls designed his
life to stand for something larger than the self. The story of his valor, love
of liberty, justice and equality can serve as an inspiration for all Americans,
most especially for those with significant obstacles to overcome. His return to
national acclaim could be considered a Black History Month gift to the children
of America. By using Robert Smalls as a role model in designing their own
destinies our youth can say, “NOTHING ever stopped Robert Smalls, not even slavery.
What could possibly stop ME?”
The
Robert Smalls Legacy Foundation, Inc. is establishing The Humble Onions
National Children’s Oral History Project which uses Smalls’ forgotten story as
an example of the power of oral history in creating and maintaining our
personal and
collective
consciousness. The initiative is being designed to lessen our nation’s racial
and ethnic divide by fostering a sense of connection to history and a sense of
commonality among children from diverse backgrounds. The foundation invites the
involvement of sponsors, educators, oral historians and others. To obtain more
information on Robert Smalls and/or to contact the foundation visit www.robertsmalls.org The site contains a full listing of
ship-naming supporters and the Robert Smalls’ family tree listing all
actual descendents.
Clarification
of commonly held misinformation on Smalls:
The Encyclopedia Britannica states that Smalls’ parents were field
slaves. Smalls
mother, Lydia, descended of slaves from Guinea, was born on Ashdale Plantation
on Ladies’ (now Lady’s) Island, S.C. and worked there as a field hand. Her
owner, John McKee, brought her to Beaufort to work as a house slave. Fathered
by a white man and born when Lydia was 49, Smalls was also a house slave. He
had no siblings. During Smalls’ interview with the American Freedmen’s Inquiry
Commission, he stated that he was, relatively
speaking, well treated.
Smalls was not impressed into service by Confederates. At 12 Smalls’ owner sent
him to Charleston to hire himself out. He worked as a waiter, lamplighter and
dock-worker and was allowed to retain $1/month of his pay. At 18, he negotiated
with his owner and thereafter retained all but $15/month of his
pay. He was hired as deckhand on the rebel steamer Planter in 1861 and later became its pilot.
Smalls was not a member of the U.S. Army or Navy. Primary source documents
indicate that General Rufus Saxton refused Smalls’ request to enlist in the
Army as his value to the Union as a ship pilot was more valuable. Smalls served
under the command of the Navy and the Army but was not a member
of either service.
Smalls did not serve in the U.S. Colored Troops. Official Civil War
military records at the National Archives and Records Administration confirm
that the soldier commissioned as Second Lieutenant, Company B, 33rd
Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops was another man named Robert Smalls.
Point of Contact:
Ms. Kitt Haley Alexander
Founder, Chair
Robert Smalls Legacy
Foundation, Inc.
703-548-2427
Further information and
photos of Smalls are also available at:
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