US Army Sails Into Navy Turf
The US Army is sailing one of its ships into Baltimore to send a message to the US Navy. You read that right. The Logistics Support Vessel Maj. Gen. Robert Smalls (LSV-8) a 314 foot ship operated by the 203rd Transportation Detachment of the United States Army Reserve is sailing into port to support the Army during the annual Army Navy football game. In case you weren't aware of it, the US Army has a substantial fleet of its own. The Smalls is named for a naval hero you have probably never heard of, either.
The Maj. Gen. Robert Smalls, a logistics support vessel, was commissioned Sept. 15 as the first Army watercraft to be named for an African American. Smalls was a slave who escaped and became a Civil War hero and eventually a U.S. congressman. His story, the Army hopes, will inspire more than its football team.
Smalls worked as a pilot on a Confederate transport steamer based in Charleston that delivered supplies to forces up and down the South Carolina coast. Late one night in May 1862, Smalls, then 23, commandeered the ship, which was loaded with armaments, while the white crew was ashore.
With 15 other slaves, including his wife and two children, he navigated the ship out of Fort Sumter, giving the correct whistle signal as he passed Confederate forts. He surrendered the steamer, known as the Planter, to the nearest Union ship, and was heralded as a hero.
"One of the most daring and heroic adventures since the war commenced was undertaken and successfully accomplished by a party of Negroes in Charleston on Monday night last," wrote the New York Herald. The New York Daily Tribune called the ship "the first trophy from Fort Sumter." "What white man has made a bolder dash, or won a richer prize in the teeth of such perils during the war?" the Daily Tribune asked.
Smalls later met with President Abraham Lincoln and went on a speaking tour in New York to drum up support for the Union. In 1863, he became the first black captain of a U.S. vessel. He returned to South Carolina and in 1866 bought the house in which he had served as a slave. He went on to become a major general in the South Carolina militia, a state legislator and a five-term congressman.
Although the Daily Tribune predicted that "history will delight to honor" him, Smalls has remained a largely unknown figure — something Kitt Alexander has been trying to change since she met Smalls's great-granddaughter Dolly Nash nearly 12 years ago and heard his story.
Here is a listing of all the vessels operated by the US Army Reserve (pdf file). Here is the website devoted to Maj. Gen. Robert Smalls. I had found out about the US Army fleet a while back when I stumbled across it looking for something else. I knew the Army had operated a huge fleet during the Second World War; my father received his career-ending injuries aboard one of the ships in that fleet. I don't recall ever reading about Smalls before today, though.
Oh. and about that football game: Go Army!
By James, Saturday, 1 December , 2007 @ 10:51 am
BEAT NAVY!
By crosspatch, Saturday, 1 December , 2007 @ 9:57 pm
When I was in the Army it was said we had more ships than the Navy and more aircraft than the Air Force.