Since his teenage years, slave Robert Smalls had been leased out by his owner to toil on the South Carolina waterfront. By the outbreak of the Civil War, he had become a skilled pilot—and was in a prime position to make a break for freedom.

‘A Hero’

Robert Smalls was a slave—but he was a slave with navigational skills; therein lay his opportunity to risk all on a dash for freedom.

Commander Benjamin Armstrong, U.S. Navy
February 2021