Robert Smalls & the Planter-- Part 2: War Comes to Charleston

For a slave making a meager wage, the price to buy your freedom was expensive, and knowing what plantation life for a slave family was like,  Smalls began to think of other ways to obtain freedom for his wife and family.

Smalls' work led him to the wharves and piers of bustling Charleston where he eventually settled in and worked various jobs as a longshoreman, sailmaker and a rigger.  He grew to like the sea and as he worked on boats, he became intimately familiar with the tides, currents and sandbars of Charleston Harbor.

Harbor pilots were needed to safely guide the big, cotton-carrying ships to and from the piers.  At that time, Blacks could not be hired as pilots, but by all accounts, Smalls was well-qualified to be one.  His experience and navigational skills led him to be trusted by the white shipowners up and down the waterfront along Bay Street.

In April 1861, of course, Fort Sumter was fired upon and forced to surrender, starting the Civil War.  War came to Charleston which became increasingly more fortified.  Confederate defenders built a series of forts and batteries around the harbor.  Many of them were located on low-lying islands only acessible as by boat.

Pilots were in huge demand.  And, Robert Smalls was an emminent one.

--Old B-Runner