Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Secrets of the Civil War: A Tale of Two Roberts

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

On today’s episode in our series, Secrets of the Civil War, we’re going to hear about two men–both named Robert and hailed as heroes, who had completely different backgrounds – until the Civil War changed the directions of their lives forever. One was a boat thief and the other was a battalion leader. Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Executive Producer: Heather Jackson Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder Written and researched by: Heather Jackson, Valerie Hoback, Amy Watkin, and Mandy Reid Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome. Welcome to Episode 7 in our Civil War series, Secrets of the Civil War. Today, we're going to hear about two men, both of them named Robert and hailed as heroes, who had completely different backgrounds until the Civil War changed the direction of their lives forever. Let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. Robert Gould Shaw was your basic, wayward, wealthy teen. When you're born into the kind of generational wealth that the Shaw family had, it's hard to take your studies seriously. Robert was white, young, good-looking, and had never wanted for anything. It was easy for him to shrug off authority figures and his

schoolwork to do more irresponsible and fun things. In the 1850s, that meant drinking wine in Switzerland and attending the opera with your mates to make eyes at the ladies. Robert's parents, Francis and Sarah, were Unitarians and staunch abolitionists. They ran in mighty circles in Massachusetts and New York and counted other well-known anti-slavery workers like journalist William Lloyd Garrison and author Harriet Beecher Stowe among their friends. If you need a quick recap, Harriet is best known as the author of the 1852 book Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was an instant bestseller in America and abroad. In it, Harriet tapped into the genre of sentimental literature that was highly popular with educated women in the 19th century. The genre usually focused on the underdogs of society, including

orphans and the enslaved, and authors wrote with the purpose of getting their readers to feel emotion and empathy for the characters. If a sentimental novel could compel a reader to cry over the character's misfortune, then it might translate to real life and spur that reader to act with empathy or support tangible social change. Harriet Beecher Stowe's white northern readership, for example, might have been influenced to read more abolitionist literature or attend educational lectures. Some of her white southern readership might have felt compelled to think differently about the treatment of the enslaved in their own homes. When Robert Shaw read Uncle Tom's Cabin, he was moved, but not enough to refocus some of his energy on the cause. He was a teenager, and he was too busy bouncing from boarding school

to boarding school. Even his enrollment at Harvard a few years later couldn't keep him settled. He wrote often to his parents of his angst, saying, everything is stupid here. I hate Cambridge. I mean, you can't sound any more entitled than that, right? Everything is stupid here. Robert dropped out before he was scheduled to graduate with the class of 1860. But even though he often acted like a petulant party boy, Robert had a little spark growing inside of him. The one consistent thing he told his parents he wanted to do was join the military. An odd choice for a boy who had spent his entire youth gallivanting about with very little self-discipline. In 1861, when the Civil War began, Robert enlisted as a private in the 7th New York Infantry, a regiment that served in the defense of Washington, D.C. Robert Gould Shaw, who wanted for nothing and cared for little, began to fight for the Union.

fight for the union. Robert Smalls knew the value of hard work all too well. His enslaver, who was likely also his father, Henry McKee, literally put a price on it. When Robert was 12 years old, McKee hired him out as a laborer in Charleston for $16 a week. Up until that point, Robert and his mother had lived in a cabin behind the McKee home at 511 Prince Street in Beaufort, South Carolina. And I'm giving you the exact address because I want you to remember it. Robert's mother, Lydia, had grown up working in the fields before she found herself favored by Henry McKee. She was brought into the main house and forced into a non-consensual relationship with him. And I say forced with purpose because we can't forget the absolute truth that when a person is enslaved, when they've been stripped of all of their freedom,

rights, and independent dignity, they have no room to consent to relationships with the people who hold power over them. Henry may have treated Lydia and their son Robert well, but he was still an enslaver. As mother and son worked in the main house, their experiences were less physically brutal than those who were forced to do manual labor outside in the southern elements. And Lydia, remembering her past, decided that Robert needed to learn how all the enslaved people on the plantation fared. And so she did something surprising. enslaved people on the plantation fared. And so she did something surprising. She deliberately showed Robert the full horrors of slavery, making him witness the frequent whippings of field hands at nearby plantations. She did so with the goal of inspiring both compassion and fire within her son. fire within her son. It worked. The fire inside the young Robert was ignited.

As a teenager in Charleston, Robert was permitted to keep one of the $16 that Henry McKee got for his work each week. It was an unusual arrangement, but Robert knew exactly what he wanted to use his compensation for. Robert Smalls eventually got nautical jobs in the Charleston Harbor, and it was there that he met Hannah Jones, an enslaved hotel maid. He was 17, and she was 22. For many who were enslaved, romantic connections were formed in the shadows, and often outside of the knowledge of their overseers. the broom, which required the couple to hold hands while stepping over one or two brooms together, or even having each partner jump backwards over a broom held up off the floor. This act of jumping the broom was a binding force in the enslaved couple's relationship, even if their union was not legal in the eyes of the state. Robert and Hannah likely got permission to marry from both of their enslavers because they were allowed to live together after they jumped the broom in 1856. Smalls had been saving the meager wages he was allowed to keep with a determined goal. He wanted to buy Hannah's

freedom. Hannah had two young daughters from a previous relationship, and the couple wanted children together too. Robert knew that if Hannah was free, any children she had would also be born free. But Hannah's freedom cost $800, and his years of meager earnings amounted to only $100 in savings. Eager earnings amounted to only $100 in savings. Robert had a choice to make. He was strong and able-bodied, and he could toil for years to earn the $800 to free Hannah, but any child they had in the meantime would go the way of the mother and be born into enslavement. Their children's freedom would have to be purchased separately and at an additional cost for each child.

Or, Robert could secure his family's freedom through another means. Escape. By 1861, Robert and Hannah had two children of their own, and they had a plan. own, and they had a plan. Robert, who had spent years working in and around boats, was assigned to work as part of an enslaved crew on a ship called the Planter. The owners of the ship contracted it out to the Confederate Army as a transport ship, and Smalls worked as the wheelman. Technically, the job was that of a maritime pilot, a job often given to a skilled navigation professional who knew the intricate details of currents, depths, and waterways. But because Robert was enslaved, he was not permitted to carry the title. As Robert piloted

the planter around the Charleston Harbor and the barrier islands of the coastal low country. He honed his nautical skills and gained the confidence and trust of the Black crew members he sailed with. Robert shared his plan with the rest of the enslaved crew and chose to roll the dice on his escape plan. One man smuggled away one of their white captain's spare uniforms and kept it hidden for Robert until he needed it. For months, Robert memorized the hand signals and language required at each checkpoint throughout the Charleston Harbor. He studied every mannerism of the captain, right down to his walk and speech pattern. And he waited for the right moment to arrive.

On the night of May 12, 1862, the planter's white officers went ashore in Charleston, leaving Smalls and the crew members unattended. It was the opening they needed. Hannah, the crew, and their families were waiting and ready for a prearranged signal. Carrying out their escape required each step of the plan to go perfectly. If they didn't, they knew that their punishment could be death. That knowledge meant that the crew and their families made a pact with each other. If they got caught, they would blow up the boat. They wanted to be

free enough that if they couldn't make it, then they would die, I will die. Around 3 a.m., Robert tipped over the first domino. It was late enough that he knew the officers weren't coming back to the ship that night, and early enough to give their plan time to work before sunrise. He sent word to Hannah and the other families of the crew to be ready at the pickup location. The crew retrieved the dynamite they'd hidden at the docks and lined the bottom of the ship in preparation for their suicide pact should it become necessary. Their mission was literally to do or die. Robert Smalls and his fellow freedom-seeking comrades fired up the ship's boilers and sailed to a hidden wharf to pick up their waiting family members. From there, they'd have to travel through a series of Confederate checkpoints in order to make it out of Southern waters.

The families huddled below deck, quiet and terrified as the ship's crew carried on like the night was part of their regular routine. Robert maintained his composure and gave the performance of his life. Dressed in the captain's uniform and big straw hat which helped conceal the color of his skin, Robert acted as the ship's captain, walking his walk and giving the correct hand signals at the appropriate times. It worked. They moved through the waterway checkpoints, undiscovered. As they passed through the last one at Fort Sumter, they were out of the harbor, but not out of danger. the harbor, but not out of danger. Robert piloted the ship along the usual path until the last possible second when he made a hard turn and began heading the planter full speed towards the ships that made up the Union blockade further out at sea. By the time the Confederate troops at Fort Sumter noticed the deviation, it was too late.

Their cannons fell short of the planter, and it was traveling too fast for any of their ships to catch up with it. Don't breathe a sigh of relief yet, though, because now they were a Confederate ship clipping through the water straight towards a Union fleet, the Federal Navy, as any self-respecting Navy would, begin to mobilize at the sight of the enemy, sailing in their direction. It was Hannah's turn for triumph. She handed over the white sheet she had brought with her, and the crew quickly pulled down the planter's Confederate flag and ran the white sheet up the flagpole in its place. The Union ship saw the flag of surrender and stood down. When Robert drew up alongside the Union ship onward, he said to the crew on deck, I thought this ship might be of some use to Uncle Abe. And I have some guns the Confederates took away from Fort Sumter. On board were four cannons and a massive artillery supply intended to help restock the army,

not to mention all of the dynamite Robert and his crew didn't have to use. Robert himself was also a huge asset to the Union Navy. As he surrendered the planter and its cargo to them, he revealed intelligence about the Charleston Harbor's defenses. He knew where mines had been laid. He knew the inland waters. He knew the ambush spots and smuggling routes. I don't think you'll be surprised to learn that Robert Smalls soon began to work as an official maritime pilot for the Union Navy. News of what Robert had done quickly spread and became the hottest story both in the North and in the South. The Northern papers hailed him as a hero, calling him the boat thief as a term of honor. The Southern

papers promoted a very different narrative. For the Confederates, the loss of the planter was obviously a huge embarrassment. I mean, we don't know for sure, but it's not hard to believe that a few checkpoint operators lost their job for waving through Robert and his crew. The Southern media coverage downplayed the event and vilified Robert Smalls. Consequently, a $4,000 bounty, an equivalent to over $118,000 today, was offered up for his capture with an $800 bounty, the equivalent of $21,000 today, offered for his wife and children. They wanted him in South Carolina, where he would most certainly be tortured and killed. But the Union kept him safe.

He became the first black ship captain on the USS Planter, the very vessel he had stolen for freedom. Robert Small's daring escape led to an invitation to meet President Abraham Lincoln at the White House, and the 23-year-old boat thief did not squander his opportunity to meet Abe. He used his newfound notoriety to help persuade Lincoln that the inclusion of African American troops could become his biggest asset in winning the Civil War. Soon after the meeting, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton ordered 5,000 formerly enslaved men to fight for the Union. And Robert Smalls stepped up to recruit for one of the first volunteer South Carolina regiments. The Union was desperately trying to take the city of Charleston, but it was proving to be a difficult task.

And this is where we catch back up with our first Robert, Robert Gould Shaw. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey we are best friends and together we have the podcast office ladies where we re-watched every single episode of the office with insane behind the scenes stories hilarious guests and lots of laughs guess who's sitting next to me Steve in the studio every wednesday we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests and we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments so join us for brand new office ladies 6.0 episodes every wednesday plus on mondays we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't

wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you In 1862, a few months after Robert Smalls made his daring naval escape and sailed 16 people to freedom, Shaw, who served with the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry, was injured at the Battle of Antietam and returned home to Boston to heal and await his next assignment. Surprisingly, Shaw made for a pretty decent officer. He didn't stand out from the crowd per se, but he was generally regarded as loyal and obedient. When President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation and called for the formation of Black regiments, Massachusetts Governor John Andrew directed the formation of the 54th Massachusetts, the first documented Black regiment from the North. Governor Andrew was an abolitionist and an important member of Robert Gould Shaw's parents' socially elite anti-slavery circle. He offered the leading job of colonel of the 54th Massachusetts to Shaw.

But Robert Shaw still had a little growing to do. He declined the offer. He may have agreed theoretically with the idea of emancipation, but he certainly had no interest in leading Black troops. He knew the stakes riding on its formation were high. If the regiment failed or performed poorly, it could ruin his career. Shaw considered African Americans to be inferior to whites. The popular opinion was that Black men couldn't be trained as well as whites and that they'd be an embarrassment to the Union army. Little thought seemed to have been given to the fact that former enslaved men who volunteered were fighting for the abolishment of a system that had dehumanized them, their families and friends. Serving the Union was a

mission of profound personal significance. Sarah Shaw, Robert's mother, was tired of putting up with her son's petulant attitude. She told him, well, I feel as if God has called you up to a holy work. And so, Robert Gould Shaw accepted his new commission with the Massachusetts 54th in February of 1863. To his credit, when Shaw began his new assignment, he went all in. He prioritized his duty over his still floundering beliefs and quickly organized over a thousand men into an elite unit. The 54th Massachusetts, under Shaw's leadership, became one of the most drilled and best trained regiments in the U.S. Army. Robert wrote to his father and said of his men, everything goes on prosperously. There is not the least doubt that we will leave the state

with as good a regiment as any that has marched. As soon as Shaw, who had grown up surrounded by the idea of abolition and equality, spent real time with Black men who became his brothers in arms, understanding finally began to click in his mind. He told his father that he had never worked with such fine men in the whole of his military career, and that those who shared his previous prejudice needed only to see his men in action to realize their error. He saw with his eyes that black soldiers fought as well, even better than white soldiers, and he was determined to prove it. In fact, his change of perspective led to a boycott. When he learned that the Black soldiers of the 54th received less pay than white soldiers, Robert Shaw led a boycott of all wages

until his men were given fair and equal pay. It took 18 months, and the action didn't win him any brownie points with his fellow white officers in the Union Army. To his men, however, he proved his loyalty. On May 28, 1863, Robert Shaw led the 54th in a triumphant parade through Boston to the docks where the regiment departed for service in Beaufort, South Carolina, hometown of Robert Smalls. Frederick Douglass himself, whose two sons served in the 54th, was there to see them off. was there to see them off. Once they arrived in Beaufort, the 54th was assigned to manual labor details, but Colonel Shaw pushed back. He knew the regiment could prove itself in battle, and he relished the chance to do so. They did on July 16th in a skirmish with Confederate troops at James Island near Charleston. Two days later, Robert volunteered the 54th to lead an assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina. Speaking to his men before

the Fort Wagner attack, Shaw reminded them that the eyes of thousands will look on what you do tonight. To which the soldier standing next to him responded, Colonel, I will stay with you until I die. The massive Union effort to take the city of Charleston began on Morris Island, where Fort Wagner stood as a mighty fortification. Facing seemingly insurmountable odds, facing seemingly insurmountable odds. On June 18, 1863, Robert Gould Shaw led approximately 650 of his men into the attack on Fort Wagner. Shaw led his troops from the front, which was a decision that would prove fatal. Charging the fort and yelling, fatal, charging the fort and yelling, forward, my brave boys. He was quickly shot multiple times, dying instantly. When Robert Shaw went down, his second, Sergeant William Carney, who was severely injured himself, got the troops out of there and returned them back to the Union lines.

The initial intel given to the regiment was that there were 300 men inside the fort. That was grossly inadequate. There were actually over 1,200, and they were prepared. The 54th never stood a chance. They did, however, prove that they were as brave as any white fighting unit, even though the cost was astronomical, the 54th lost two-thirds of their officers and half of their troops. The Confederate general inside Fort Wagner refused to return Shaw's body to the Union Army. In an attempt at indignity, he threw the bodies of Shaw and his fallen men into a common mass grave. Later, after the war, the army attempted to find Robert Shaw's body and return it to his parents, but his father insisted that Robert be left in the place of honor with his men.

He said, We would not have his body removed from where it lies, surrounded by his brave and devoted soldiers. We can imagine no holier a place than that in which he lies, nor wish for him better company. When the Civil War began in 1861, it was a white man's war. Black men who wanted to fight were turned away. Robert Gould Shaw did not join the war effort to end enslavement, but to instead find some sort of personal purpose in life. His purpose evolved, and his leadership of the 54th and their collective heroism at Fort Wagner

encouraged the additional enlistment of Black soldiers into the Union armed forces. And as our other Robert, Robert Smalls, predicted when he spoke with President Lincoln, the recruitment of Black troops helped hand the Union its victory. Interestingly, Frederick Douglass' son, Sergeant Major Lewis Henry Douglass, survived the battle at Fort Wagner. He was so badly wounded that he received a military discharge due to disability. Charles Remond Douglass, who had trained with the 54th, was moved to another unit before the 54th attacked Fort Wagner. Recruitment of Black soldiers wildly accelerated

when Frederick Douglass encouraged Black men to consider the big picture. Serving as soldiers would smooth the path to eventual full citizenship. Volunteers responded swiftly, and in May 1863, the government established the Bureau of Colored Troops to manage the growing numbers of Black soldiers in the Union Army. The opportunity to serve was, of course, useful to the Union who wanted to expand their military numbers, and it also offered something to Black recruits—security. Yes, enlistment came with great personal risk of injury or death, but in return, the soldiers were given food, shelter, clothing, community, and paid employment.

For the newly emancipated, it provided the resources they needed to start a new, free life. But before we think the route was an easy one, we have to remember that discriminatory practices permeated the U.S. military. Units were segregated, and like the 54th, were almost always commanded by white officers. Historical data indicates that Black men made up about 10% of the Union Army, or around 179,000 men. An additional 19,000 served in the Navy. Almost 40,000 were killed, largely due to disease and infections. One free Black man who served and survived was the boat thief himself, Robert Smalls. was the boat thief himself, Robert Smalls.

Throughout his Navy career, Smalls often returned to his hometown of Beaufort, South Carolina to connect with his mother and other family members. As the war began to come to its conclusion, he officially resettled his family there. At the top of the episode, I asked you to remember an address. Did you? It was 511 Prince Street. And after the war, Robert Smalls purchased it. The grand southern home of Henry McKee, who had once enslaved him and his mother. Smalls was able to secure the home for himself during a tax auction of properties belonging to white residents who had fled the city when it fell into union hands.

He paid for it with the money the union had given him for stealing the planter and its cargo from the Confederacy. In 1864, Robert and his wife Hannah hosted the wedding of Lavinia Wilson, a formerly enslaved woman who had escaped on the planter with them, to a soldier in the 33rd United States Colored Troops in their new home in Beaufort. Later that same year, Smalls began his career in politics when he served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention, the beginning of his decades-long political career through the Reconstruction era. He was an activist who was arrested in Philadelphia for challenging segregation on public transportation. And this was many decades before the likes of Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks. A decade later, as white Democrats gained control of much of the

Reconstruction-era South, Beaufort citizens chose a different path. They elected Smalls to represent their district in Congress, where he served five terms in the House of Representatives between 1875 and 1887. He used his political role to combat the disenfranchisement of Black voters across the South. By the time Robert Smalls died in 1915 at the age of 75, he had witnessed enslavement, emancipation, the right of Black men to vote, and served in the ranks of the United States government. But by then, the South had been working hard to limit Black freedoms again through Jim Crow laws and Black codes, the Southern political landscape was full of politicians who instituted harsh segregation policies, while also promoting

lost cause rhetoric, which denied or downplayed the fact that the Confederacy fought to maintain their right to enslave people. It's one of the reasons why the successes of black trailblazers like Robert Smalls disappeared from the narrative. In the late 20th century, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment sent out an important press release that read, in May 1987, souvenir hunters using metal detectors on Follies Island near Charleston discovered the remains of 19 Union soldiers. The South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology identified the remains as members of the 55th Massachusetts Regiment, 54th Massachusetts Regiment, and the 1st North Carolina Infantry. On Memorial Day in

1989, the discovered bodies of the 54th were reinterred at Beaufort National Cemetery. One of those bodies was that of Colonel Robert Goldshaw. He now rests less than a mile from the grave of Robert Smalls. When Robert Goldshaw was 25 years old, he found redemption in serving with the men of the 54th. Up until he worked with them, he had been a reluctant participant in the war and in the cause of abolition. His men gave him something to live and die for. By the time he was 23, Robert Smalls had escaped enslavement and taken freedom for himself, his family, and for others. He was a leader from the beginning, and he spent the rest of his life working for the equality of Black Americans.

There's nothing in the historic records to suggest that the two Roberts ever crossed paths with each other, but undoubtedly their lives both demonstrate the heroics that gave the Union its victory. And in February of 2023, the United States Navy announced that it was renaming one of its guided missile destroyers. It had previously been called the USS Chancellorsville, which was named after a Confederate victory in the Civil War. But its new name was the USS Robert Smalls. was the USS Robert Smalls. Join me next time when we talk about other volunteers in the Civil War,

most of whom you are going to be shocked to learn about. I'll see you soon. Thank you for listening to Here's Where It Gets Interesting. This episode is written and researched by Sharon McMahon, Heather Jackson, Valerie Hoback, Amy Watkin, and Mandy Reed. Our executive producer is Heather Jackson. Our audio producer is Jenny Snyder, and it's hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to hit the follow or subscribe button on the podcast platform of your choice.

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