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Giving a Hero His Due
A new Army ship is named after Robert Smalls, who escaped
slavery at the beginning of the Civil War by commandeering
a Confederate ship and surrendering it to the Union Navy.
A
new Army ship, the largest in feet long and 60 feet wide
the Army inventory, has been and 5,412 tons, the ship has
named after a former slave. The two Caterpillar engines pro-
logistics support vessel Major General ducing 5,000 horsepower.
Robert Smalls, known more commonly
as the MG Smalls — the fi rst ship in the Chosin Reservoir
Army named after a black citizen — was Marine Identified
commissioned this fall at a ceremony at
H
e lost his life in one
Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Several digni- of history’s toughest
taries and descendents of Smalls attend- fi ghts, and more than
ed the ceremony. 50 years later, his remains
On May 13, 1862, while the crew of have been buried at Arlington
the Confederate ship Planter was ashore, National Cemetery, Va.
Smalls and 12 other slaves boarded the Marine Pfc. Carl Amos
ship and set sail north. Smalls navigated West was 23 when he was
the ship with loaded armaments through killed Dec. 8, 1950, near the
dangerous rebel territory and was hailed Chosin Reservoir in Korea.
a hero by President Lincoln. Smalls be- West was buried with his dog
came the captain of the Planter, making tags in a cemetery near the battlefi eld with Robert Smalls was
him the fi rst black captain of a vessel in other fallen servicemembers. He remained a Civil War hero and
U.S. service. He later served as a major there until 1954, when his remains were re- the first black U.S.
general in the South Carolina militia, a patriated in “Operation Glory,” an exchange citizen to have an
state legislator, and a U.S. representative of war dead with North Korea that brought Army ship named
for fi ve terms. home nearly 3,000 soldiers and Marines. after him.
Kitt Haley Alexander, a writer and an However, American offi cials could not
artist, spearheaded a seven-year effort reconcile discrepancies between West’s
to have a military vessel named after the medical charts and his dental remains, so
Civil War hero. After its commissioning, he was buried with some 800 unknown
the MG Smalls joined the Army Reserve’s Korean War veterans at the National Me-
203rd Transportation Detachment. At 314 morial Cemetery in Hawaii. Recently, his
remains were exhumed, and in March
THIS MONTH IN HISTORY
2007, researchers positively identifi ed
them as West’s.
■ On Dec. 25, 1776, George Washington led his
troops across the Delaware River to successfully
West grew up near Seattle and joined
attack a Hessian force in Trenton, N.J. After many
the Marine Corps in the waning days of
defeats for Washington’s army, the victory raised
World War II. His niece and her family at-
the spirits of the colonists.
tended the ceremony. MO
PHOTO: U.S. NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER DECEMBER 2007 MILITARY OFFICER 77
ddec_history.indd Sec1:
77ec_history.indd Sec1:77 111/6/07 5:40:29 PM1/6/07 5:40:29 PM
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