Robert Smalls and The White Officer

After Smalls delivered the Planter to the U.S. Navy, it was billeted over to the Army. It was a wood-burner, and Navy vessels ran on coal. The Navy had no capability to supply fuel for a wood-burner. Also, the boat was far better suited for moving supplies and troops up and down the rivers and creeks of South Carolina. As large and commodious as she was, the Planter only drew a bit over three feet, so we could run in and out among the sand bars and shifting channels with ease. But she was top heavy and rolly at sea.

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Smalls knew the local waters remarkably well. The fellow couldn't read a lick, though he studied our charts earnestly and seriously. Eventually he learned to recognize numbers and seemed to be able to read soundings and bearings. But he really didn't need those. He knew the necessary bearings and soundings on these waters better than any U.S. Navy chart would show them.

The resupply of Morris Island had always been a problem. Landing small boats on the ocean beach was impossible in all but the calmest of weather. The inlet likewise was unapproachable from the sea with any sort of swell running. So supplies for our sizable garrison there, along with ammunition for the heavy guns that were shelling Charleston and Fort Sumter, had to be offloaded on Folly Island, dragged by wagon along the miring sand tracks of that island, reloaded on to small boats, and rowed across the inlet to Morris.

Smalls came up with the idea to resupply Morris by running the creeks on the inside. Folly Creek runs fairly deep and wide for several miles, winding inland toward Confederate lines at Secessionville. Smalls felt by taking a couple of creeks that branched off to the east, he could pilot Planter through at high tide and steam down to the inlet between Morris and Folly. Scouts were sent one night to sound the passage in small boats. They found the plan viable.

We got underway two days later with a cargo of supplies. We steamed up Folly Creek in broad daylight, winding left and right though the marsh, closer and closer to the Confederate batteries at Secessionville. By the time those batteries started firing, we were well within their range, and the Planter began taking hits immediately.

Within minutes, it was clear we were trapped. Folly Creek at that point was too narrow for us to turn around. The Planter could not back down the stream against the flood current. She couldn't be steered in reverse. The flood current was carrying us closer to the guns at Secessionville. We were taking furious fire, and the Planter did not have enough armor to withstand the onslaught.

Captain Nickerson had no choice. He called me to the wheelhouse and gave the order to strike colors and raise a white flag. The strain and dismay on his face were remarkable, but I knew it was the right thing to do. Continuing up the river would quickly result in the destruction of the Planter and unnecessary loss of life. Neither of us wanted to become a prisoner of war, but that was the only choice other than certain death, and I felt the Captain was doing his duty.

I had failed to bring Robert Smalls into my calculations.

Smalls loudly demanded that I ignore the captain's order. I looked at him, I'm sure, with utter astonishment, as projectiles from Confederate guns crashed into the ship and the surrounding marsh. Smalls had the steamer moving at flank speed. He could hardly take his eyes away from the water in front of the ship, the tidal creek was so tight and twisting.

Several of his colored crewmen gathered around the wheelhouse. Smalls loudly explained to the Captain that, while we, the white crew members, risked little in surrendering, he and the other coloreds faced execution at the hands of the Rebels for stealing the Planter. They could not, under any circumstances, surrender, he told the Captain.

The Captain reacted with astonishment and growing rage. The ship was shattered by cannonballs. Exploding shells burst around us, spewing shrapnel. The Planter continued at flank speed up the river.

The Captain ordered Smalls to stop the ship. Smalls did not react. The Captain ordered me again to strike colors and hoist a flag of surrender. Smalls told me, in the most commanding of voices, not to do so.

I hesitated. Smalls acted. He ordered the other coloreds to take the Captain below and lock him in the wood hold. They did not hesitate.

The Captain was led below. I stood on the deck of the wheelhouse, staring at the marsh speeding past us and the shells as they exploded. Smalls steered the ship with determined ire. I realized I had allowed a mutiny on a United States ship of war. I must act to stop it, I knew.

But I could not. Smalls was no longer the colored pilot of that ship, a civilian in the service of the U.S. Army. He had, in the space of a couple of minutes, become the commander of the thing, and I was unable to react in any appropriate way.

I've long wondered about that moment. After years of reflection, it occurs to me that much of our life is dependent on knowing our place. Each of us has a role to play. We are a son, a brother, a father, a citizen, a soldier, an officer, an enlisted man, a servant, a master.... In almost any interaction with any other human being, we must know our place in order to function.

Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin and became President. But President Lincoln did not simply walk into the White House one day and start acting like the President. He followed an order of progression. He occupied the correct sequence of places as he moved up to his ultimate position.

Robert Smalls had no sense of how one could or should do this. Smalls simply was. He simply stepped into the moment and took the action that was needed. This was a magnificent thing to watch. But it was terrifying and disconcerting to those around him.

The ship steamed up the river under ferocious fire, now, sustaining heavier and heavier damage. Smalls was determined, calm, concentrated at the wheel. Suddenly, he turned sharply to starboard, into one of the narrow creeks headed east. I expected at any moment to run aground and be left entirely at the mercy of the rebel bombardment, but Smalls kept the ship moving at flank speed.

I stood a coward, sweating, shaking, expecting my life as an officer was finished, expecting incarceration at best, execution at worst. Within minutes, Smalls had steamed out of range of the guns. The shells spewed up water, marsh grass, and mud behind us, and then they went silent. Smalls piloted the Planter down the creek to the inlet at Morris Island.

My confusion in the ensuing days was intense, but I retained a sense of how the Army was structured, and the coward in me navigated quite effectively through that structure. Captain Nickerson, released from the wood-hold upon our arrival at Morris Island, was immediately relieved of command. Robert Smalls was appointed captain of the Planter, and as such, lays claim to being the first colored captain of a United States ship of war. Nickerson was later court-martialed for cowardice under fire.

I, the real coward in the incident, had, by virtue of my inaction, taken the side of the victor. I retained my commission and continued my advance through the ranks for the rest of the war.