As waves rocked the Planter, Robert Smalls proudly presented the guns to the dashing young John Frederick Nickels, the captain of the Onward, who had come very close to destroying the ship a few minutes earlier. The moment was surreal. After years of longing to find a way out of slavery for his family, Smalls had finally done it. He and his family had escaped. He would no longer have to worry about his wife or his children being sold and separated from him. He would no longer have to worry that they would be sent to the Work House or that Hannah would be raped or beaten. Smalls had accomplished what had seemed nearly impossible and now was turning over a Confederate steamer and four desperately needed cannon.
Nickels must have been shocked as he realized what Smalls and his crew had achieved and just how much their act would benefit the Union. Every gun helped further the cause, whether for the North or South, and Smalls was not just adding cannon to the Union arsenal, he had also taken guns away from the Confederates.
After Smalls announced that he had brought the guns, Nickels boarded the Planter. The group of newly freed men immediately surrounded him and asked if he had an American flag he could spare. Nickels soon took down the makeshift white flag flying from the Planter and replaced it with an American one. The Planter was now a Union vessel.1
The women and children appeared on deck, and the women began shouting with happiness. Hannah was so excited she raised Robert, Jr., over her head and told him to look at the flag. “It’ll do you good,” she said.2
As the rejoicing continued, Smalls gave Nickels the newspapers the crew had brought out of Charleston the day before.3 They would help the Union understand what the Confederates did and did not know about the Union military and would give Nickels and other officers a glimpse of daily life in the city.
Smalls also turned over a book from the Planter that included the secret code for reading Confederate wigwag signals.4 Wigwags were coded messages transmitted across line-of-sight distances by an officer performing specific combinations of motions with a flag; each motion represented an alphanumeric character determined by the signaling code. At night the Confederates used torches instead of flags.5 The book’s value to the Union was significant. Before the Confederates realized that the code had been compromised, the Union would be able to read signals sent from Fort Sumter, Fort Moultrie, and Morris Island to headquarters in Charleston.6
* * *
Nickels soon welcomed Smalls and the rest of the company to the Onward as the men and women continued to celebrate their newfound freedom. Just hours earlier, masters had controlled their lives. Now, although they were still considered contrabands by the U.S. government rather than completely free, they had a chance to create their own futures.
* * *
As Nickels provided the commanding officer of the Union fleet with the details of Smalls’ escape, the city of Charleston awoke to martial law and the embarrassing realization that the Planter had been taken. Its citizens shuddered in disbelief.
Initially the city’s whites simply could not believe that anyone could have taken the steamer from the harbor, let alone that an enslaved crew had done so. “The news at first was not credited,” reported the Charleston Daily Courier, as rumors of what had happened swirled throughout the city. “It was not until, by the use of glasses, [the Planter] was discovered, lying between the federal frigates, that all doubt on the subject was dispelled.”7
John Ferguson, the owner of the Planter, must have been furious when he heard what had happened, particularly when he realized that the white officers had not been on board. The Confederacy would probably reimburse Ferguson for the value of the steamer, but he would no longer receive the handsome leasing fees he had charged.8
Equally angry that the ship had been taken was Gen. Roswell Ripley, commander of the Second Military District of South Carolina. Ripley’s aide-de-camp had the unpleasant task that morning of reporting to the general, who was known for his outbursts, that slaves had taken his dispatch boat. He also had to tell Ripley that the guard in the neighborhood of the wharf had been questioned and reported seeing two white men and a white woman board the vessel at about eight o’clock in the evening. The guard had noticed the visitors when they arrived, but he did not see them leave and had not thought to investigate further. The trio, the guard surmised, had been on board with the enslaved crew when the vessel left the harbor.9 While the guard’s report was completely inaccurate, it highlighted the Confederacy’s lax security and the absence of the Planter’s white officers.
The rumor that whites had helped orchestrate the escape quickly spread and seemed to make it easier for many in Charleston to believe what had happened. One Confederate soldier wrote his mother, “The affair of the steamer Planter seems to be creating some excitement … I scarcely think that negroes devised that scheme. Some white person must be at the bottom of it.”10
In addition to being indignant, Ripley must also have been mortified. A group of enslaved men had taken his personal barge a few weeks before, and now another group had taken a steamer used as his dispatch boat and moored next to his headquarters.11 He also must have been greatly concerned that Smalls and the other men on the Planter knew a lot about Charleston’s defenses, including that the Confederates had abandoned Cole’s Island (the location from which they had been ordered to remove Confederate guns the day before they took the steamer). Their work had made them privy to lots of information that the Union would find helpful. The problem was not that the Confederates had trusted the men, but that the Confederates relied on them and never anticipated they could escape.
Ripley had no choice but to report the disaster to his superior officer, Maj. Gen. John C. Pemberton. Forty-eight-year-old Pemberton was the commander of the Confederate Department of South Carolina and Georgia; he had recently replaced Gen. Robert E. Lee, under whom he had served. Like Ripley, Pemberton was a Confederate officer who was born in the North and had married a Southerner. Despite their shared background, Ripley and Pemberton did not get along. Both were known for being abrasive. Pemberton was also blunt and aloof and had not endeared himself to many in Charleston, some of whom had made their feelings known to Lee.12
When Smalls seized the Planter, Ripley already had been angry with Pemberton because he had ordered the abandonment of Cole’s Island. Ripley considered the defenses at Cole’s Island essential to protecting Charleston and thought Pemberton had made an inexcusable mistake. And now Pemberton’s decision had led to the seizing of cannon that both sides desperately needed. Had Pemberton not ordered troops to leave Cole’s Island, Smalls would not have been moving the valuable guns, and they would still be in the possession of the Confederacy.
Once Pemberton was told, he, too, had to report what had happened to his superior Lee, who was now in Richmond serving as a military adviser to Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy. Lee’s reply was restrained yet stern. He wrote that he hoped action would be taken to prevent a recurrence of such an event and that anyone who had helped the crew take the steamer or had not tried to stop them would be punished.13
Ripley quickly announced Special Field Orders, No. 35: “No steam boat, small boat, or vessel of any description whatever, will be allowed to pass Fort Sumter, by day or night, without a report in person of the Captain thereof at said fort.”14 He would never let such an embarrassment happen again.
* * *
While the Confederates were scrambling to learn what had happened on the morning of May 13, Smalls and the rest of his party were enjoying their moment of triumph aboard the Onward. But their stay with the blockading fleet was brief. Later in the afternoon Nickels turned the group over to the senior officer, Cdr. Enoch Parrott of the USS Augusta. Parrott arranged for a Union crew to take the group and the Planter to the Union squadron at Port Royal.
With a Navy crew at the helm, the Planter steamed about sixty miles south before reaching Cmdre. Samuel Francis Du Pont’s flagship, the Wabash, a massive steam screw frigate anchored off Hilton Head Island.15
* * *
Du Pont had been stationed in the area since his heralded victory at Port Royal, which would earn him the rank of rear admiral in July 1862. In addition to his military responsibilities, Du Pont faced the unforeseen problem of what to do with the ten thousand African Americans left behind after the whites unexpectedly fled the Sea Islands. They needed food, clothing, housing, and medical attention, but no plan was in place for providing these necessities. Even the food stores on the plantations were dwindling quickly as the Army used them to feed its own men, leaving little for the former slaves to eat. The military would have to find a solution quickly.
Since his arrival Du Pont had seen firsthand the toll slavery had taken on the former slaves. He had been raised in the border state of Delaware, which allowed slavery, but neither he nor his family had ever owned slaves. He had always been morally opposed to the peculiar institution, as it was called, but he, like many others, also believed the Constitution allowed for it. Until he arrived in Port Royal, he had also thought that enslaved people were, for the most part, treated humanely. His recent experiences had quickly altered that view. “My ideas have undergone great change as to the condition of the slaves since I came here and have been on the plantations,” he wrote to his wife a few weeks after arriving. “But God forgive me—I have seen nothing that has disgusted me more than the wretched physical wants of these poor people, who earn all the gold spent by their masters at Saratoga and in Europe. No wonder they stand shooting down rather than go back with their owners.”16 By the time Smalls took the Planter, Du Pont had seen the scars of slavery and was well versed in its realities.
* * *
Late on the night of May 13, the Planter neared Du Pont’s flagship. When the Wabash’s officer on deck could not immediately identify the vessel, he feared it was a Confederate ram bent on attack. After a few moments of excitement and concern, but before disaster could strike, the crew on the Planter was able to communicate that the vessel was under Union control.
The Planter was allowed to approach the Wabash, and the acting master of the Planter soon came aboard and told Du Pont how Smalls had taken the Confederate vessel. The acting master also turned over Cdr. Enoch Parrott’s report, which said the “very intelligent contraband who was in charge will give you the information which he has brought off.”17 Du Pont was intrigued and called for “the hero, Robert.”
Just hours after escaping slavery, Smalls was meeting with the man in charge of the entire South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and telling his story. He could hardly have imagined that this would be one of the outcomes of his plan; it was but the first of many surprises.
Du Pont, who towered over Smalls, found him to be a “pleasant-looking darky, not black, neither light, extreme amount of wooly hair, neatly trimmed, fine teeth; a clean and nice linen check coat with a very fine linen shirt having a handsome ruffle on the breast, possibly part of the wardrobe of the Navy officer who commanded the boat, but fitting him very well if they were.”
Du Pont was also impressed with the Planter and wrote that it was “a fine boat, can carry seven hundred bales of cotton, has a fine engine, and draws but little water and will be of the greatest use to us—so that in herself she is a valuable acquisition, quite valuable to the squadron.”
As the two men talked, Smalls told Du Pont how he had commandeered the vessel, and he shared precious military intelligence with him. Smalls revealed that because the battery at Cole’s Island, which defended the Stono River, had been abandoned, James Island was open for invasion. This was critical information. If Union troops could take James Island, they could attack Fort Johnson. If successful, they would control the inner harbor. Smalls also told Du Pont that the Confederates were building Fort Ripley in Charleston Harbor and that many Confederate troops had been sent to Tennessee and Virginia, leaving just a few thousand behind. Smalls even described the scarce provisions in Charleston and told of the recent declaration of martial law. In response to this vital information, Du Pont told Smalls he would “take care of him and his people, that he was a hero.” Du Pont found the information “thorough and complete as to the whole defenses of Charleston.”
Before they parted, Du Pont could not help but ask Smalls about Charleston’s reaction to the taking of General Ripley’s barge weeks earlier by the group of fifteen slaves. Du Pont recognized how embarrassing the disappearance of the barge must have been for the Confederates. Smalls agreed and showed his sense of humor. He replied, “They made much to-do about [the barge] and talked a great deal, ordered sharper lookouts and more pickets. I think they had more to say this morning about me, though, when they find the steamer gone.”18
Du Pont was so impressed with Smalls that when he sent a dispatch about the Planter to Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles the following day, he wrote, “This man, Robert Smalls, is superior to any who has yet to come into the lines, intelligent as many of them have been. His information has been most interesting, and portions of it of the utmost importance. I shall continue to employ Robert as a pilot on board the Planter for inland waters.”19 The chance to pilot the Planter for the Union Navy was a tremendous honor for Smalls and one he would gladly accept.
Du Pont also wanted Smalls and the rest of the party to benefit financially for what they had done. He closed his letter to Welles by stating that if the government considered the Planter a prize, Smalls and the others should be given a claim. The Navy’s tradition of awarding prize money was meant to encourage sailors to capture vessels rather than destroy them. If a prize court determined that a ship had been seized fairly, it would order the vessel appraised or sold at auction to private bidders. If sold, half the final bid went to the Navy, while the other half was divided among the crew according to a formula based on their rankings. While officers often made significant money from these captures, the regular crew rarely received much.20 Since Smalls and the others on board were not Navy personnel when they took the vessel, Du Pont was not sure they were eligible to receive a prize. If they were, he wanted them to receive their fair share. He had seen for himself at Port Royal just how much injustice the enslaved had already endured.21
* * *
Smalls was right in thinking that the Confederates would have more to say about him than they did of the men who had taken Ripley’s barge. Smalls’ actions were cursed around the city and throughout the South.
A young Englishman visiting Charleston wrote,
Nothing has so much exasperated the Charlestonians as the daring feat of Robert Smalls, the negro slave, who so boldly and gallantly took possession of the steamer Planter, and proceeded with her past fort and battery, and finally delivered her to Uncle Sam’s gunboats. There was doubt and speculation, and finally rage and unmitigated spleen, predominating that day throughout the Palmetto City, when the Planter was missed from her wharf.22
Much of the Confederates’ wrath also seemed to fall on the three white officers who were not on board when the steamer was taken. The officers had directly violated orders by leaving the Planter that night, and a massive public outcry called for holding them accountable for the damage and embarrassment they had caused.
Ripley led the way. He wrote to the assistant adjutant general of Charleston to ask that charges be placed against the white officers immediately. “The mischief has occurred from the negligence of the captain and officers of the boat and the disobedience of orders,” he wrote. “I shall prefer charges against them at an early day and lay them before the general commanding the department.”23
The Charleston Mercury agreed wholeheartedly. The officers, the paper argued, should be disciplined. The headline on its May 14 story about the abduction of the steamer was “Disgusting Treachery and Negligence.” The paper said,
The result of this negligence may be only the loss of the guns and of the boat, desirable for transportation. But things of this kind are sometimes of incalculable injury. The lives and property of this whole community are at stake, and might be [jeopardized] by events apparently as trifling as this. It is, therefore, due to the Service and to the Cause, that this breach of discipline, however innocent in intention on the part of the officers, should be dealt with as it deserves. Without strict discipline, no military operations can succeed.
The Charleston Daily Courier also fervently called for the officers to be disciplined. It wrote, “We are informed that this shameful proceeding is due wholly to the criminal absence of the Master, Mate, and Engineer from their posts.”24
The fury extended beyond Charleston. A correspondent for the Southern Guardian in the state capital, Columbia, wanted even more drastic measures taken. He wanted the men hanged.25
The three officers, Charles J. Relyea, Samuel Smith Hancock, and Samuel Z. Pitcher, were arrested the day after the Planter was taken and were likely taken to the towering and ominous Charleston District Jail, where they were held until their trial.26 The four-story jail, which was next door to the infamous Work House, held felons, deserters, and occasional prisoners of war. Since the failed Denmark Vesey slave revolt in 1822, Charleston authorities had required visiting black sailors to be held at the jail until their ships left the port to prevent them from encouraging a slave rebellion.27
The frightened officers and their prominent Charleston lawyers, James Simons and Nelson Mitchell, did their best to pacify the animosity and begged for leniency. An unsigned notice in the Charleston Mercury, likely written by the lawyers, said the officers could not offer any excuses for their acts. They then offered several excuses, including that the officers had worked hard all day and into the night, had been ready to continue their work the next morning, and had wanted only to spend some time with their families. The notice asked for “some little good feeling from a people whose kindness of heart has already overlooked several cases of like nature on the part of some in authority.” It was no doubt referring in part to the disappearance of Ripley’s barge.
After bringing up the barge affair, the notice placed blame for the commandeering of the steamer on the authorities, saying they should have appointed extra security after these other incidents. The posting did not stop there. It continued, saying of the officers:
Humble men as they are, they yield to none in devotion to the interests of the State and the Confederacy, and, while they shall bow with becoming respect to whatever judgment may be passed upon them, they hope that the justice meted out to them may be seasoned with a little of that gentleness which has been extended with bountiful hands to others who are chargeable with several similar cases of carelessness.28
The notice had little effect. A little more than a week after Smalls seized the Planter, the three officers were court-martialed at the Charleston headquarters of the Department of South Carolina and Georgia. Each was charged with two counts: “disobedience of orders,” for disregarding General Orders, No. 5 and leaving the steamer without permission, and “neglect of duty,” for allowing the Planter to be taken.
Their lawyers argued that because Relyea and Hancock were not enlisted in the Confederacy, they were not subject to “the rules and articles of war” or the jurisdiction of a court-martial and were not guilty.
Despite the lawyers’ efforts, Relyea and Hancock were found guilty. But the punishments were not as harsh as some had hoped. As contractors, the men were subject to a court-martial only because martial law was in effect in Charleston.29 As captain of the Planter, Relyea was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment and fined $500. If he failed to pay before his three-month sentence was over, he would be imprisoned an additional two months. Hancock was sentenced to one month and fined $100. Pitcher fared far better than the other two men—the charges against him were dropped entirely.30
Displeased with the verdicts against Relyea and Hancock, their lawyers brought the case before Pemberton, the commander of the Confederate Department of South Carolina and Georgia. He, of course, was familiar with the taking of the Planter, as General Ripley had informed him about it, and Pemberton in turn had had to report it to Lee in Richmond.
To the astonishment of many Charlestonians, Pemberton disagreed with the court-martial and overturned its findings in regard to Relyea and Hancock. Pemberton believed that none of Relyea’s or Hancock’s superiors had properly communicated the orders about remaining on board the ship. In fact, he directly blamed Ferguson, the owner of the Planter, saying that he had “been entirely indifferent as to the deportment of his subordinates in that particular” and that he, Pemberton, did not see how the public would benefit from the officers’ punishment. That the men were not members of the military must have influenced his decision as well. With his findings announced, the men were freed.31
Pemberton’s decision only compounded the city’s dislike of him. Many in Charleston were outraged that the officers had escaped any type of punishment. They were especially angry that Pemberton blamed Ferguson. The Charleston Daily Courier published a response to Pemberton’s decision on its front page. It argued that Ferguson had three other steamers in the government’s employ and, as a contractor, was not “responsible for the military custody of the boat and its freight.” The paper also argued that had a “proper investigation” been held when Ripley’s barge was taken weeks earlier, the Planter would have remained safe.32
Word of the court-martial and Pemberton’s decision to overturn the verdicts would eventually make its way north. On August 15 The New York Times gleefully wrote, “It seems that the officers of the steamer Planter have been on trial for allowing Robert Smalls and his associates to outwit them and transfer the vessel to National control.” The paper printed the entire order by Pemberton, who, not surprisingly, was transferred west that fall.33
Relyea, who turned his attention to blockade running, died shortly after the trial. In January 1863 his steamer, en route from Nassau to Charleston, foundered in a storm, and he was lost at sea.34
* * *
The fate of the white officers was not the only issue of concern for the people of South Carolina affected by the loss of the Planter. Some owners of those who had escaped wanted their slaves returned. One anonymous master wrote a letter to the editor of the Charleston Daily Courier: “Ought not those in authority assist in getting back the women and children to their owners?—One of the Sufferers.”35
Kingman, who had owned Hannah and her daughter, Clara, as well as Hannah’s children with Smalls, wanted to be compensated. He filed a claim for their loss with the State of South Carolina. South Carolina had appointed a claims committee after the Union invasion and occupation of Port Royal and the Beaufort area in November 1861 to ascertain the value of property destroyed or taken because of the war; enslaved people were included as property. To the Confederates the enslaved men, women, and children all had a specific monetary value, and their owners were entitled to redress. Kingman estimated that Hannah and her children were worth $2,250: Hannah, he wrote, was worth $800, while Clara was worth $1,000, Elizabeth $300, and the infant Robert $150.36
Henry McKee, Smalls’ former owner, was by this time serving as a steward at the Confederate Hospital on the campus of South Carolina College and was grieving the loss of two of his ten children to scarlet fever.37 The bacterial illness, caused by strep throat, created a bright red rash over most of the patient’s body, giving the disease its name, and was often deadly, particularly in children.38
McKee must have been surprised and even angry when he learned what Smalls had done, but McKee was also weary and preoccupied with all the losses he had suffered. Though he may have had property and investments elsewhere, and savings in Savannah or Charleston (Beaufort had no banks), he had lost his home, lands, and almost all his slaves in Beaufort when the Union captured Port Royal.39 Now he was dealing with the unexpected deaths of two of his children. McKee’s friend, Charles Leverett, an Episcopal clergyman and planter, reported that McKee had said that “one of the negroes was his” when they were discussing the taking of the steamer, but it is not clear whether McKee, like Kingman, put in a formal claim.40
* * *
The South lamented Smalls’ bold feat, but much of the North celebrated it. The New York Herald wrote, “One of the most daring and heroic adventures since the war was commenced was undertaken and successfully accomplished by a party of negroes in Charleston on Monday night last.” The story described the men and women on the Planter as “plucky Africans who have distinguished themselves by this gallant service.”41 Dozens of newspapers and magazines across the country republished the story.
The New York Tribune, the mostly widely read newspaper in the country, saw the event as evidence that General Hunter’s effort to start a black regiment was a good idea. But even as the paper championed allowing African Americans to fight, its argument was condescendingly racist: “[Smalls’] skillful and brave exploit is a justification of Gen. Hunter’s assumption that in the class to which Smalls belongs in South Carolina, there is some intelligence and patriotism which is worth appealing to.” In a later article the paper seemed genuinely surprised to find that blacks could be not only heroic but also skillful and tactful. It wrote, “This man, though black, is a hero—one of the few History will delight to honor. He has done something for his race and for the world of mankind … He has added new proof to the evidence, that negroes have skill—and courage and tact, and that they will risk their lives for the sake of their liberty.”42
The notion that blacks would fight for their freedom was not new. Abolitionists like Frederick Douglass had been arguing since the beginning of the war that blacks would and should fight. In May 1861 he wrote,
Oh! that this Government would only now be as true to liberty as the rebels, who are attempting to batter it down, are true to slavery. We have no hesitation in saying that ten thousand black soldiers might be raised in the next thirty days to march upon the South … Every consideration of justice, humanity and sound policy confirms the wisdom of calling upon black men just now to take up arms in behalf of their country.43
If what Douglass said was not enough to convince some Americans that blacks would fight for their freedom, Smalls was helping to prove it.
The story of his escape was so big at the time that major newspapers argued that Smalls and the others who had been aboard the steamer should be compensated, just as Du Pont had argued to the Secretary of the Navy. The New York Times wrote, “Such heroism should not go unrewarded … They deserve something more.” The Philadelphia Inquirer declared, “It is said that his vessel and guns are worth near $30,000, a prize to the blockading fleet. Will no Congress, by unanimous consent, give these bold fellows the full value of their prize, as an encouragement to others?”44
Some politicians in Washington agreed that the crew deserved prize money for the vessel even though they were not members of the military. On May 19, just days after the steamer was turned over to the Navy, Senator James W. Grimes of Iowa, a member of the Naval Committee, introduced a bill that would entitle the crew to a reward. Once the Planter had been appraised, half its value would go to Smalls and the others. The bill passed unanimously.45
When the House took up the bill a week later, representatives from Kentucky, one of the border states that still allowed slavery, left the room in protest.46 Despite the theatrics, the bill passed, 121–9. Lincoln signed it on May 30, only seventeen days after Smalls and company had taken the steamer.
The measure read:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Navy be, and he is hereby, authorized to cause the steam transport boat Planter, recently in the rebel service in the harbor of Charleston, and all of the arms, munitions, tackle, and other property on board of her at the time of her delivery to the Federal authorities, to be appraised by a board of competent officers, and when the value thereof shall be thus ascertained to cause an equitable apportionment of one-half of such value so ascertained as aforesaid to be made between Robert Smalls and his associates who assisted in rescuing her from the enemies of the Government.
Section 2. And be it further enacted, That the Secretary of the Navy may, if he deems it expedient, cause the sum of money allotted to each individual under the preceding section of this act to be invested in United States securities for the benefit of such individual, the interest to be paid to him or to his heirs annually until such time as the Secretary of the Navy may deem it expedient to pay to him or his heirs the principal sum as aforesaid.47
Given that prize money awarded to Navy sailors was never invested on their behalf, the second section was likely added because of the former slaves’ inexperience with handling finances.
Just a few days after Lincoln signed the bill into law, Owen Lovejoy, a Republican representative from Illinois and an abolitionist whose brother Elijah had been killed in 1837 by proslavery forces, was so moved by what Smalls had done that he introduced another bill in the House. This bill would emancipate Smalls and those who had escaped with him. It was hard to imagine, but they were still deemed contrabands by the government and were not legally free. Lovejoy wanted to change that.
Lovejoy’s bill was referred to the Judiciary Committee, but there is no record of what happened to it. It is possible that Smalls and the others were officially freed then. It is equally possible that the bill never became law. The country was still debating whether to free slaves, and the issue may have been too controversial to tackle.48
An official decree of freedom would have had great meaning to Smalls and the others. But even without it, they were no longer enslaved.
* * *
That summer, Secretary of the Navy Welles sent Rear Admiral Du Pont instructions to have the Planter appraised and asked him to forward his recommendations for how the money should be distributed among the Planter’s crew. While Welles waited to hear from Du Pont, the rear admiral proudly sent the secretary the two flags, the Confederate flag and the South Carolina flag, that had been aboard the Planter when it reached the Union fleet.49 The flags were now war trophies and emblems of what African Americans were willing to do for their country.
The appraisal, which was supposed to be determined by “competent officers,” came in at $9,000, far less than the $30,000 at least one newspaper had estimated and the $32,000 it had cost Ferguson to build it.50 The Planter’s guns, which had been sent to New York and appraised by ordinance officers, were estimated to be worth a total of $168, another ridiculously low appraisal.51 Years later Smalls would contest these estimates and offer testimony from two experts who thought the average value of the Planter at the time was $67,500—more than seven times the original estimate—with an additional $10,290 worth of cargo.52
Du Pont was probably not surprised by the low appraisals, given that government funds were especially tight during the war. Despite the disappointing figures, Du Pont was likely relieved that Smalls and the others were getting something.53 The government could easily have refused to give the party any prize money because they were not members of the military.
With just $4,584 to divide among Smalls and the others, Du Pont gave his recommendations to Welles in August. Du Pont awarded Smalls, as the leader of the party, $1,500. It was not as much as Smalls deserved and likely not as much as he had hoped, but it was enough to change his life forever and give his family what they needed to survive.
Du Pont awarded John Small and Alfred Gourdine, the engineers, $450 each, whereas Chisholm, Allston, Turner, and Jackson each got $400, and Morrison, the tinsmith whose family was in Alabama, received $384. Du Pont gave Morrison a lesser share because the admiral believed incorrectly that Morrison had been the only man who “joined the Planter after she left the wharf” and therefore had played a lesser role in the escape. In fact, two other men had been with him.
The women in the party did not fare as well. Du Pont gave Annie White and Lavinia Wilson $100 each, but the other women got nothing. Du Pont reasoned that these women, including Hannah, “would derive benefit through their various relationships to the men.” White and Wilson, he wrote, “have no such connection, and are destitute and unprovided for.”54
Although Smalls and the others celebrated the news that they had been awarded prize money, their struggles were far from over.