"The Planter" Escapes: Lt. Lamson's Letters

A perceptive United States Navy lieutenant, Roswell H. Lamson, was stationed on the USS Wabash in Port Royal Harbor from November 4, 1861 (participating in the Battle of Port Royal Sound) until July 5, 1862. He would later command a gunboat fleet that helped stop Gen. James Longstreet’s advance on Norfolk, VA and was very involved in capturing Fort Fisher in North Carolina in December 1864 – January 1865. According to editors James M. McPherson and Patricia R. McPherson, “Lamson of the ‘Gettysburg:’ The Civil War Letters of Lieutenant Roswell H. Lamson, U.S. Navy” contains “the best portrayal of blockade duty in the Civil War.” It’s lucky for us because Lt. Lamson was personally involved in receiving a prize of war that received lots of media attention in both the United States of America and Confederate States of America – and wrote personal letters to his cousin Flora Lamson of Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts about the event.

Two letters recount the escape of The Planter headed by Beaufort’s own Robert Smalls.  In a letter dated May 13, 1862 while the USS Wabash is temporarily “off Charleston”, Roswell writes his cousin Flora Roswell that:

“… Soon after I commenced this letter the ‘Officer of the Deck’ bellowing through his trumpet –‘Steamer Ahoy!!’ – What Steamer is that?’ – and you may imagine our surprise when we learned that fifteen negroes had run her out of Charleston harbor, past all the forts and reached our fleet outside.

She is an armed steamer having six guns on board and was lying at the wharf between two other steamers nobody being on board except the negroes, when they backed out and steamed down the bay with the rebel flag flying, as they passed Fort Sumpter they saluted the flag on the fort by dipping their colors and as soon as they were clear of the guns they ran up a white flag…" (p. 60)

Another letter to Flora five days later was written from aboard The Planter:

"… You will no doubt hear before you receive this of the negroes running this Steamer out of Charleston harbor….The enterprise was planned by Robert Small, the black pilot, who proposed it to the others some time ago….Nine men, five women and three children came in her. When the Steamer reached this place the Commodore sent me on board…to take command of her, and the next day sent me to Beaufort to find good quarters for the families…. They are altogether better fixed than they ever were in their lives before, and it would do you good to see how happy they seem at being free. When they ran up the white flag and were out of range of Sumpter, Robert Small[s] said ‘We’re all free n* now.’ … Robert has his wife and three children and he says it was the cruel treatment his wife received that made him first determine to make the attempt to escape. They all express their firm determination not to be taken alive after leaving the wharf, and if fired into to sink rather than stop the vessel well knowing what their fate would be if taken. They say the slaves are treated with the greatest cruelty in Charleston now…

I do not know how long I shall continue in command of the boat for she is not a man of war and it would be contrary to naval etiquette to put a regular officer in her." (pp. 62-63)

Robert Smalls would serve as the pilot of The Planter for the rest of the Civil War. Lt. Lamson would later command a gunboat fleet that helped stop Gen. James Longstreet’s advance on Norfolk, VA.  Lamson was very involved in capturing Fort Fisher in North Carolina in December 1864 – January 1865.

The US Navy would honor Lt. Lamson by naming three ships after him: A torpedo boat destroyer built in 1907; a second destroyer launched in 1919 that served through 1935, and a third destroyer named USS Lamson commissioned in 1936 that saw service in the North Atlantic Ocean during World War II.

Learn more about how the military has honored the bravery of Robert Smalls in the WordPress blog.