Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist Lineberry (The Secret Rescue) chronicles how in 1862 Robert Smalls, an illiterate 23-year-old deckhand from Charleston, S.C., hijacked the Planter, a Confederate steamer, and with a crew of fellow enslaved sailors-including his wife and children-sailed to freedom in Union-occupied waters, giving valuable Confederate secrets to the North. Through succinct and powerful prose, Lineberry unveils how Smalls hatched his bold and dangerous plan to steal the ship. His defiant act was "an extraordinary and unprecedented event" that made national headlines and gave lie to the white-supremacist belief in black inferiority. Smalls became a Union hero who met with President Lincoln and a hallowed leader of the South Carolina coastal Gullah community to which he belonged. Lineberry narrates Smalls's story against the backdrop of the Civil War and Reconstruction, detailing his career as a Union soldier, U.S. congressman from South Carolina, school builder, businessman, and customs collector, as well as his fall into obscurity after his 1915 death. Lineberry elevates Smalls to America's pantheon of black leaders, showing him to have been as courageous and inspirational as Harriet Tubman in her heroic exploits along the Underground Railroad and Booker T. Washington in his rise from bondage. Agent: Ellen Geiger, Frances Goldin Literary. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
On May 13, 1862, a 23-year-old slave named Robert Smalls seized an armed sidewheel steamer from the Charleston headquarters of a Confederate general, ran a gauntlet of fortifications, and delivered the vessel to Union forces, earning freedom for his family and his crew of slaves. A trained pilot, Smalls would become a Union hero and the first black captain of a navy ship. Postwar, he bought the South Carolina house where he and his mother had worked as slaves, raised his family, ran successful businesses, and served five terms in Congress. Lineberry (The Secret Rescue, 2013) ably provides context for Smalls' saga: slavery's horrors, the story of blacks in the Union fighting force. But Smalls remains an enigma. Where did he get his courage? How did he muster the forgiveness to help his former masters after the war? Press accounts must have been glowing, but there's little psychological complexity in this otherwise compelling story. Something about Smalls captured people's attention and hearts and went far beyond his seizing of a Confederate vessel, Lineberry writes. That something remains elusive.--Gwinn, Mary Ann Copyright 2017 Booklist
Kirkus Review
An audacious paragon of the Civil War, now largely forgotten, is brought back to life, and his rags-to-riches adventure is certainly worth the revisit.In the cotton-rich cradle of the Confederacy, not far from Charleston, South Carolina, Robert Smalls (1839-1915) was born a slave. Once an illiterate house servant in the Beaufort home of his owner, the affable Smalls quickly became a hero in the North and an enemy in the South. It all started when the clever Smalls conceived of and executed a plan to release himself, his family, and several others from bondage and, in the doing, render a service to the Union. It was a dramatic, even cinematic, scheme. Smalls was a proficient steersman, hired out to work aboard the Planter, a Confederate steamer, in Charleston's harbor. One day in May 1862, with his black crew and frightened passengers aboard, he commandeered the ship and navigated it out to the Union blockade of Charleston. In the dim light, disguised with the boat captain's distinctive headgear, Smalls sailed the Planter past Southern fortifications port and starboard. It was an impressive feat. Reliable, congenial, and whip-smart, he became the toast of the North. He assumed the captaincy of the Planter, lectured in Northern cities, met President Abraham Lincoln, and assisted freed slaves (who were, to keep them free, considered "contraband"). Smalls also learned to read and write, became a man of means, and bought and occupied the Beaufort home of his former master. He even became a member of Congress. This is unquestionably a remarkable story, and journalist Lineberry (The Secret Rescue: An Untold Story of American Nurses and Medics Behind Nazi Lines, 2013, etc.) ably tells it as a microcosm of the war. It's a tale of politics and battles told with clarity, and the matter-of-fact discussions of people owning other people remains as jarring as it should. A worthwhile Civil War biography cogently presented and ready for the big screen. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Robert Smalls, a slave living in Charleston, SC, commandeered a Confederate naval vessel in 1862, sailed past fortified Confederate strongholds, and delivered the ship and its guns to the Union Navy. Journalist Lineberry (The Secret Rescue) successfully charts Smalls's (1839-1915) epic and dangerous voyage, illuminating the many roles Smalls played in garnering freedom for enslaved African Americans. The author provides ample evidence to suggest that Smalls was instrumental in advancing the mind-set of many colonists concerning what enslaved people were willing to do to aid themselves and their families. Lineberry parallels Smalls's actions with other events occurring throughout the country, bringing to life the multiple moving parts and politics that went into furthering the cause for African American participation in the Union military-a strategy that eventually assisted in the Union victory. VERDICT A valuable narrative history that will benefit readers interested in African American, Civil War, or naval history.-Rachel Koenig, SUNY Canton Lib. © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
