The Fleming Foundation Cultural Commentary

14

Treason, Black and White by The Alabamian

By

The night of May 13, 1862, some Confederate officers did not pay sufficient attention to a well loaded gun ship, the C.S.S. Planter. Very early the next morning, Robert Smalls and his accomplices seized the Planter loaded ammunition and weapons, and slipped past Confederate checkpoints out of Charleston Harbor and into the Union ships blockading the city.