And authorjournalist eberry discusses her book, the amazing story from freedom from slavery to freedom. Brian cate lineberry. When did you first get interested in Robert Smalls, and who was he . Cate i first learned about history a few years ago. I was looking for another idea. My youngest brother sent me a short article on Robert Smalls. I was astounded to find i have never heard of this man. I have done a lot of writing for the New York Times. I worked for Smithsonian Magazine and read about the civil war for them and i had never heard of him. It was a little article that encapsulated his life and i wanted to know more. I wanted to know how this man, who have been told from the time he was a young child that he was not worth anything could have had the courage and determination to find a way out of slavery. I was intrigued and could not reading about him. Brian born in 1839. Where was he born and into what situation . Cate he was born in beaufort, South Carolina, 75 miles from charleston. It is a very small town at the time, but a very wealthy town. The wealth of the town had was from slaves that had been will imported from west africa. The main crops were indigo, cotton, and rice. It was mostly rice. He at the time brian as you were talking, i was thinking about, who was his mother and father . Cate we do not know who his father was. Many people believe he was the owner of smalls. His mother was a slave born on the plantation of the mckie family. She was nine or 10 and taken from the plantation with the mckee family to help raise their children. It does not look like he ever knew who his father was. The name smalls was chosen by a robert himself. The mckeees were a wealthy family in beaufort, beaufort royalty. They were a prominent family that had the respect of a lot of people. Robert was fortunate in the fact that henry mckee was a very kind owner. He was still enslaved, which made it a difficult life. He was fortunate in the fact that he was raised as a house serving with his mother. Obviously, no one who was enslaved is having the life they would like. It was much more they had access to information and they had regular food and handmedown clothes. Brian how many brothers and sisters . Cate lydia had one son before robert. By the time she had robert, she was in her 40s. But he pretty much grew up as an only child living in the house, the slave house behind the mckee house, which still exists today in beaufort, on the historic registry. Brian what is beaufort, South Carolina, like . I know people make a mistake all the time that there is a beauford, north carolina. How far is it from charleston . Cate 75 miles, also on the coast. Beaufort is a beautiful town. Very small compared to charleston. At the time, they did have a lot of slaves living in town and robert would have gone out to the plantations with mckee to help him with some of his duties. He was seeing a lot of different ways of life. Brian let me interrupt to point out this map. If people are straining to find out where beaufort is an charleston, it is right down there on the southern, southeastern point there. Cate right, and it was a very strategic place for the union army in november, 1851. 1861. That is where they decided they were going to have a port. Port royal is just south of beaufort, the first naval victory of the war. And by doing so, by this point, smalls was already in chareleston. He had been relocated there by his owner. In 1861, the union captured the area and beaufort became this union stronghold. It had charleston citizens very worried because they were so close. Brian why did the civil war start in charleston . Cate South Carolina was the first state to secede. Charleston was known as the spiritual capital of the confederacy. It was not as strategical place to capture as it would be a moral victory for the union. It quickly became a place where the union wanted to capture it and they wanted to prove to the south that they were the victor. Brian the war actually started on what date . Do you remember . Cate april 12, 1861. Thats right. Brian how many people lived in that part of the United States . Cate i mean, compared to the north, there were a lot fewer People Living in the south, but charleston was a place where a lot of during the International Slave trade, about 60 of slaves who came into the country came through charleston. It was a major port in the country. And it was, like i said before, a very important spiritual capital of the confederacy. A lot of goods and services came out of charleston, and compared to beaufort, there was a major city for smalls. He was relocated there by his owner when he was just 12 years old. Mckee decided he was going to move houses and we think that lydia, roberts mother, encouraged mckee to allow robert to go to charleston with the hopes of having more options. Of course, he was hired out as a slave, which was a common practice at the time. So he was on his own to find work, but everything he earned went back to mckee. Brian what was a slaves worst then . Cate it depended on several factors. One was your age, how muscular you were, lots of factors went into this. I know that when robert eventually married a woman named hannah, and when hannah was sold to her owner, kingman, in 1847, she and her three children were worth about 2000. Brian hannah was how much older than robert . Cate she was about 13 years older, considerably older. Brian you say you legally could not marry if you were a slave. Cate that is right. It was a law in South Carolina, but they were able to get the permission of their owners. Robert smalls had to get the permission of henry mckee, and he also had to go to hannahs owner and ask permission for her. It was only something that was allowed for trusted slaves. It was something that would help their morale and it was something that they could easily do. I mean, of course, any slave children that were born would become the property of the female slaves owner, so it would encourage relationships and marriage when possible. Brian how did you get interested in the civil war . Cate ever since i was young. I have two ancestors i grew up knowing that both ancestors fought on gettysburg, on either side of the war, which was very intriguing to me. One was 28 years all the he was one of the pennsylvania bucktails. Another was a 19yearold kid from north carolina. They were both injured at gettysburg. And the confederate was actually sent to a pow camp. That was intriguing to me. The more i read about it as i got older and root pieces for the New York Times blog, i became intrigued. It is such a fascinating time in history. Our history. I think the reverberations of the war are clearly still being felt today. So i think it is an important period for us to understand. It was Robert Smalls story that intrigues me, but he is a video call for the racial relationships at the time, what i thought was very interesting. I thought i was fairly knowledgeable about the subject, and i learned there was so much more i did not know. Brian what was one of the first things you learned that you did not know . Cate i did not realize when any enslaved person that is the preferred term by people because it gives the power back to the person they were enslaved rather than defining them as a slave but for those that were enslaved and got to their freedom, i did not realize they were considered contraband, so Robert Smalls, when he actually became got to the union ships in his great escape, he was not actually free. Now, most slaves did not recognize that necessarily, but it was an important point. The u. S. Government was not ready to say whether we were going to free all the slaves, whether that was a point of the war. It was a major factor. I did not realize how much lincoln had also, you know, he was trying to placate the border states so much that for so long, he was not sure what he was going to do about the slaves either. Brian where did you grow up . Cate i grew up in raleigh, north carolina. Unc chapel hill. Brian to study the civil war, how did you go about it . How often did you go where there was a battle . Cate i read a lot of books. In my research, for these writing projects, i did that. I also certainly have been to gettysburg and other major civil war attractions. I think going to anyplace is so important to get a feel when you are doing your research, which is why i spent time in charleston and beaufort. When you start seeing the places where these people walked, it becomes more real to you. You know, i think, the more we can learn about the civil war, the better off we will all be. It is still impacting us today. Brian well put Robert Smalls photograph is on the screen. Tell us some things about him. How long did he live . Cate he lived until 1915. He ended up becoming a u. S. Congressman. He served five terms in the house of representatives. His career was it was difficult after he had been accused there was a bribery charge against him at one point in his career. He never fully recovered from that. My opinion, that is one of the reasons why he is not better known today. He ended up ending his career as a customs collector in beaufort. But when i look at this man, i see someone who had incredible courage and perseverance. And when he ended up well, he had several children. One young boy died during the war. His other three children that he had throughout his life, he valued education and he made sure they had the best education they could. And when i look at him, i see a father who was very concerned that his children have a better life. It is ultimately the reason that he decided to take the chance that he did in escaping on the planter. He risked everything. He had a 4yearold and young son at the time along with his wife out of slavery. Brian what is the planter . Cate a sidewheel steamer that robert was working on. It was built right before the war happened. Once the war broke out, it was used as a cause and transport ship. Once the were broke out, the owner of it, john ferguson, started leasing it to the confederates. 125 per day, a considerable amount. When robert decided he was going to escape on board the ship, it was may 1862. He had been working on board he started as a deck hand, but worked as a wheelman or a pilot. They would not give the title of pilot to a slave at the time, but that essentially is what he was doing. That is where we were the night he escaped in may 1862. Brian if he was a slave into charleston and you are Walking Around, how does someone know you are enslaved . Cate charleston has a unique custom in that they had slave badges that they required all slaves to wear. They are usually diamond shaped metal badges. It was up to the owner it was like a license. Every year, they would have to get a badge that said what occupation they were doing and what year it was. And so, any slave that was Walking Around, including smalls, would have had to wear a badge at all times. That was in part to differentiate them from the free black population, which i did not realize was fairly substantial in charleston, about 3000 free blacks at the time. Brian how did the free black and enslaved blacks get along . Cate i think a lot of people a lot of free blacks oftentimes tried to help their enslaved brothers and sisters by actually purchasing them. It was illegal unless the legislature approved it to you free for your slaves to your slaves by this point. By this point, a lot of free blacks are just Family Members as a way to get them out of the control of their owner. Of course, it is a very debated topic and there are lots of interesting stories, but there certainly were some free blacks who owned slaves as well. But i think robert was part of several secret societies. We do not know a lot of their dealings, but they were mutual aid societies. Some of them were with free blacks, and some were made up of slaves, but they tried to help each other. So when one persons Family Member died, they might all contribute for a funeral. Or they might contribute with any help any cost that the family might incur. There was some reciprocity and interactions within the community, but for the most part, i think slaves were so controlled that they did not have a lot of time to interact. It was illegal for more than three or so africanamericans to meet together without a white person present. Brian so just this for a moment, if you were enslaved and all of a sudden, you were sold, do you just take the badge off . Cate if you were enslaved and sold brian sold to a freeman . A free black. Or it did not matter. You all of a sudden let us say you are sold to someone else and they just freed you, what would happen . Cate technically, you were not freed because it was illegal. It is a great question, an interesting question. I would assume you would still have to follow the rules of the day and you were Still Limited because you were still a slave even though, for all intents and purposes, you were living with your Family Member who had purchased you. So i think that you would still probably be wearing a slave badge and Walking Around. Brian so when the attack came at fort sumter in april of 1861, where was Robert Smalls on that day . Cate he was already working on board the planter. He was a deckhand. We do not know specifically what he saw that day, but im sure he saw a lot of White Charlestonians watching from their rooftops. It was something. Both sides thought the war would end very quickly. We had millions of deaths. Robert also would have seen a lot of the celebrations in the streets. Fireworks going off. They wanted this battle at that point, the White Charlestonians. Brian when did it all begin that Robert Smalls wanted to figure out a way to get away from the confederates . Cate i think he was always looking as he was growing older, but once he married hannah, he was only 17 years old when they married. They soon had children, and that really elevated his quest for freedom a lot more. He did not want them to grow up in the atmosphere he had. There were some very brutal aspects of charleston particularly. There was something called the workhouse where if an owner did not want to punish his plays by himself, he could send them for a fee to the workhouse, which was a former sugar warehouse. So sometimes owners would threaten their slaves by saying im going to send you for a little sugar. Brian is that located downtown in charleston . Cate yes, that no longer exists now. That is where slaves would be punished. There was a treadmill. It was perretti pretty friend us horrendous stuff. Robert would have seen that growing up and so, yeah. Brian was he or any of his Family Members ever sent to the workhouse . Cate we dont know. He did talk about, in 1863, he was interviewed by the american freemans commission. He talked about the brutality he had seen on the beaufort plantation. His mother, lydia, who was a very important person in creating robert as the person that he was, she instilled in him determination and courage. She had taken him to see some slaves being sold and punished in beaufort when he was a child. Then through his own words to that commission, we know he saw some pretty brutal things on the plantations, including talked about seeing his aunt whipped. He saw quite a bit. Of hisot know if any Family Members were sent to the workhouse. He was the only member of his family in charleston, so when he was sent there at the age of 12, he was essentially on his own. He was under the supervision of henry mckees sisterinlaw. But, you know, just to imagine a 12yearold Walking Around the streets of charleston, trying to find work, seeing people being bought and sold on the street, and that was always his fear, was that his family would be ripped away from him. That was really why he was searching so hard to escape. Not just for himself, but for his family. It was very difficult for a slave to run away. When you have two children, one one being a very young child, it is nearly impossible. He really had to find a unique way to escape. He was looking for a long time. Brian the ship, the planter, was owned by you . Cate john ferguson. It was a local businessman. He leased it to the confederacy at the time. Brian how big was it . Cate 147 feet long. Brian how many people served on it . Cate there was a crew of about 10. That included three white officers. They were officers in the sense that they were working on the boat, but were not enlisted in the confederacy. There was a captain and first mate and a deck hand. And an engineer. There was the enslaved crew. Brian when did Robert Smalls begin the process of trying to do something about the planter . And where was his family . Cate his family was nearby in charleston, but a lot of slaves did not live together. They did not see each other regularly. But robert started thinking about escaping soon after a new captain came on board the planter. His name was charles. He had two things that made Robert Smalls plan possible. He happened a short and stocky, which robert was, and he also favored wearing this widebrimmed straw hat. The third thing that was critical is he often decided to leave the ship in the enslaved crews hands while they spent time with their families. That was a direct violation of confederate orders, but he either trusted smalls and the other men or he likely did not think they were capable of taking the steamer out of trust of Charleston Harbor, which was a monumental feat for anyone, but at the time, even in the north, a lot of white did not believe africanamericans were capable of such a feat. So you had the white officers and then smalls and his crew on board. Brian what was the date of the escape and how did he do it . Cate they had been moving guns around Charleston Harbor for two weeks, and smalls was already thinking that he joked around with one of his crew members that when the crew members that when the crew member put the hat of the captain on roberts head, he said maybe i can impersonate this white captain