Tuesday, May 20, 1862
ROBERT SMALL
The House of Representatives at Washington, it is to
be hoped, will be more just to their own sense of right and to their generous
impulses than to put aside the Senate bill giving the prize-money they have so
well earned to the pilot and crew of the steamer Planter. Neither House
would have done an act unworthy of their dignity had they promptly passed a
vote of thanks to Robert Small and his fellows for the cool courage with which
they planned and executed their escape from Rebel bondage, and the unswerving
loyalty which prompted them, at the same time, to bring away such spoils from
the enemy as would make a welcome addition to the blockading squadron.
If we must still remember with humiliation that the
Confederate flag yet waves where our National colors were first struck, we should be all the more prompt to recognize the merit that
has put into our possession the first
trophy from Fort Sumter. And the country
should feel doubly humbled if there is not magnanimity enough to acknowledge a
gallant action because it was the head of a black man who conceived, and the
hand of a black man who executed it. It would be better, indeed, become us to
remember that no small share of the naval glory of the war belongs to the race
which we have forbidden to fight for us; that one negro has recaptured a vessel
from a Southern privateer, and another had brought away from under the very
guns of the enemy, where no fleet of ours has yet dared venture, a prize whose
possession a Commodore thinks worthy to be announced in a special dispatch.
Whether Robert Small had heard of Gen. Hunter’s
proclamation we do not know. It is, however, more than probable. At any rate, his
skillful and brave exploit is a justification of Gen. Hunter’s assumption that
in the class to which Small belongs in South Carolina, there is some
intelligence and patriotism worth appealing to.