Home of Robert Smalls added to National Historic Network

BEAUFORT, S.C. (WCBD) – The household of a former Lowcountry slave who went on to serve in the U.S. Property of Associates will be added to the Reconstruction Era Countrywide Historic Community.

Smalls was born a slave in Beaufort, but was sent to Charleston to operate on the CSS Planter, a steamboat chartered by the Accomplice Military. He is credited with turning the tide of the war in favor of the Union when on Might 13, 1862, he stole the ship and surrendered it to Union soldiers.

Just after his courageous endeavor, Smalls met with President Abraham Lincoln and allegedly certain him to make it possible for slaves to fight in the Union army.

Soon after the war, Smalls returned to his indigenous Beaufort. He was elected to the condition legislature then went on to provide five conditions in the United States Home of Associates before returning as soon as once again to Beaufort to dwell out his retirement.

Small’s Beaufort property is one particular of four houses becoming extra to the Reconstruction Period National Historic Network.

The other web sites staying additional involve two churches with ties to Smalls. The First African Baptist Church in Beaufort, of which Smalls was a member, served as a faculty for former slaves. The Tabernacle Baptist Church in Beaufort, exactly where Smalls is buried, also served as a college all through the Civil War and played an significant part in Beaufort’s reconstruction subsequent the war.

Historic Brattonville in York County is also becoming added to the network. The 800-acre plantation “interprets the lives of previously enslaved people living and working” there in the decades soon after the war.