Robert Blake was born into slavery in Virginia. He somehow ended up South Carolina. In June 1862, his owner's plantation was burned during a Union expedition up the Santee River. About 400 slaves from his plantation were taken aboard a Union ship as contraband. They were sent to North Island in Winyah Bay, S.C..
While on North Island Blake answered the call for twenty single men to serve on the USS Vermont, an old U.S. ship of the line serving as a receiving ship at Port Royal, South Carolina.
By December 1863, he had been transferred to the USS Marblehead and was serving as a steward to Lt.Cmdr. Richard Worsam Meade. Early in the morning of December 25, while the Marblehead was cruising in the Stono River, the ship came under fire of a Confederate howitzer at Legareville on Johns Island.
Meade jumped from his bed and ran onto the quarterdeck to give the order to return fire, Blake followed him, handed him his uniform, and urged him to change out of his night clothes.
--Old B-Runner
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