Stripping Confederate Ties, the U.S. Navy Renames Two Vessels - The New York Times

The USS Chancellorsville, soon to be renamed for Robert Smalls.

Almost three years ago I tried to persuade my colleagues to call for the former Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton to be named after Robert Smalls.  They didn't bite.  But now the USS Chancellorsville will be renamed the Robert Smalls to honor the slave who led the mutiny which commandeered a confederate ship in Charleston harbor. - GWC

Stripping Confederate Ties, the U.S. Navy Renames Two Vessels - The New York Times

By Emily Schmall

One night in 1862, as the Civil War raged, an enslaved mariner named Robert Smalls seized an opportunity.

When the enlisted crew of a Confederate steamer disembarked for a night of carousing in Charleston, S.C., Mr. Smalls, the ship’s pilot, gathered his family and the other enslaved sailors and their families. He then steered the ship for a dramatic escape past heavy fortifications to Union-controlled waters and freedom.

Disguised in a top hat and a Confederate captain’s long overcoat, Mr. Smalls gave the passcodes at each of five Confederate forts and, once past the reach of cannon fire, hoisted a white flag of sewn-together bedsheets that his wife Hannah had made — delivering the ship to Union forces.

Mr. Smalls and the crew had lined the bottom of the boat with explosives to detonate rather than be recaptured and face execution.