<v Speaker 1>I'm Jerry Broadway, and this is Anonymous America where we

<v Speaker 1>dig a little deeper into American history to look for

<v Speaker 1>those unsung heroes who you really should know about, but

<v Speaker 1>no one ever taught you. In this episode, you're going

<v Speaker 1>to meet a gentleman who stole a ship in the

<v Speaker 1>middle of a war and sailed it right through enemy territory.

<v Speaker 1>From Hey Dad Productions, This is Anonymous America. Before sunrise

<v Speaker 1>on May thirteenth, eighteen sixty two, a Confederate transport vessel

<v Speaker 1>called the Planter was docked in Charleston Harbor. Its captain

<v Speaker 1>and all the officers had gone ashore for the night,

<v Speaker 1>which left the ship entirely in the hands of its

<v Speaker 1>enslaved crew. Now, the man in charge of that crew

<v Speaker 1>took a look at that empty pilot's chair, turned around

<v Speaker 1>and looked at his people, and made a decision. They

<v Speaker 1>were going to steal that Confederate warship in the middle

<v Speaker 1>of a war in one of the most heavily fortified

<v Speaker 1>harbors in the South tonight. That man's name was Robert Smalls,

<v Speaker 1>and believe it or not, he pulled it off. Robert

<v Speaker 1>Smalls was born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina, in

<v Speaker 1>eighteen thirty nine. He grew to be a gifted seaman,

<v Speaker 1>so gifted that his enslaver hired him out to work

<v Speaker 1>on boats in Charleston Harbor, where he learned to pilot

<v Speaker 1>ships through some of the most complex waterways on the

<v Speaker 1>Eastern Seaboard. Robert knew those waters, and he knew the

<v Speaker 1>Confederate military codes. He knew the signals that they used

<v Speaker 1>to pass through checkpoints because he had been watching the

<v Speaker 1>officers so carefully for so long, he even knew how

<v Speaker 1>to mimic their behavior, including wearing the captain's distinctive straw hat.

<v Speaker 1>So when the officers left the Planter unattended for the

<v Speaker 1>night on May twelfth, Robert Smalls saw his moment and

<v Speaker 1>he seized it. He and the crew quietly loaded their

<v Speaker 1>families onto the ship. There were sixteen people in all,

<v Speaker 1>and they fired up the boilers, and they raised the

<v Speaker 1>Confederate flag, and then Robert Small's put on that straw

<v Speaker 1>captain's hat, took the helm and sailed the CSS Planner

<v Speaker 1>directly through five Confederate checkpoints in the harbor. As I said,

<v Speaker 1>he knew the passwords, he knew the whistle signals. He

<v Speaker 1>mimicked the captain's posture and movements so well that no

<v Speaker 1>one even thought or raised an alarm. Well. Once they

<v Speaker 1>cleared the Confederate lines, Robert lowered the Confederate flag and

<v Speaker 1>raised a white bed sheet as a flag of surrender,

<v Speaker 1>and sailed straight to the Union blockade. When he arrived,

<v Speaker 1>he handed over the planter, its cannons, its ammunition, the

<v Speaker 1>Confederate code books, and detailed intelligence about Confederate fortifications in

<v Speaker 1>Charleston Harbor. The Union commanders were, to say the least stunned.

<v Speaker 1>This was one of the most significant intelligence since windfalls

<v Speaker 1>of the entire war. Later, the US Congress voted to

<v Speaker 1>give Smalls and his crew members prize money for the

<v Speaker 1>captured vessel, and Robert went on to become a captain

<v Speaker 1>in the Union Navy, helping to command, among other ships,

<v Speaker 1>the very vessel he had stolen. When the war ended,

<v Speaker 1>Robert returned to Buford. He bought the house where he

<v Speaker 1>had been a slave, and he would later serve five

<v Speaker 1>terms in the United States Congress. Robert lived until nineteen fifteen,

<v Speaker 1>so to sum it all up, he stole a Confederate

<v Speaker 1>warship in the middle of a war, sailed it through

<v Speaker 1>five checkpoints, handed it to the Union, and then went

<v Speaker 1>to Congress. That's Robert Small's and that's anonymous America