USS Planter (1862)
Steamer Planter loaded with 1000 bales of cotton at Georgetown, South Carolina. Ca 1860-61 or 1866-76
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| History | |
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  United States
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| Name: | USS Planter |
| Laid down: | date unknown |
| Launched: | 1860 |
| Acquired: | 30 May 1862 |
| In service: | 1862 |
| Out of service: | 1862 |
| Struck: | 1862 (est.) |
| Fate: | transferred to the Union Army, circa August 1862 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Steamer |
| Displacement: | 308 long tons (313 t) |
| Length: | 147 ft (45 m) |
| Beam: | 30 ft (9.1 m) |
| Draft: | 3 ft 9 in (1.14 m) |
| Depth of hold: | 7 ft 10 in (2.39 m) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | Unknown |
| Complement: | Unknown |
| Armament: | 1 × long 32-pounder gun, 1 × short 24-pounder howitzer |
USS Planter (1862) was a steamer taken over by Robert Smalls, a Southern slave and ship's pilot who steered the ship past Confederate defenses and surrendered it to Union Navy forces on 13 May 1862 during the American Civil War.
For a short period, Planter served as a gunboat for the Union Navy. As the ship burned wood, which was scarce where the Navy was operating, the Navy turned the ship over to the Union Army for use at Fort Pulaski on the Georgia coast. In 1863 Smalls was appointed captain of Planter, the first black man to command a United States ship, and served in that position until 1866.
Planter was a sidewheel steamer built at Charleston, South Carolina in 1860 that was used by the Confederacy as an armed dispatch boat and transport attached to the engineer department at Charleston, under Brigadier General Ripley, CSA.
At 04:00 on 13 May 1862, while her captain, C. J. Relyea, was absent on shore, Robert Smalls, a slave who was Planter's pilot, quietly took the ship from the wharf, and with a Confederate flag flying, steamed past the successive Confederate forts. He saluted the installation as usual by blowing the steam whistle. As soon as the steamer was out of range of the last Confederate gun, Smalls hauled down the Confederate flag and hoisted a white one. Then he turned Planter over to the USS Onward of the Union blockading force.
Besides Smalls, Planter carried 15 other slaves to freedom behind Union lines: seven crewmen, five women, and three children. In addition to the cargo of artillery and explosives, Smalls brought Flag officer Samuel Francis Du Pont valuable intelligence, including word that the Confederates had abandoned defensive positions on the Stono River.
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