South Carolina's monument to Civil War hero Robert Smalls will rival old statues of white supremacists, and his story will be the one that inspires schoolchildren

Basil Watson's rendering of the memorial (Robert Smalls Monument Commission)

The loss of a tree outside the South Carolina State House – whether by chance, or divine intervention – opened a spot for a statue of Civil War hero Robert Smalls, who will stand equal to monuments of white supremacists on the Capitol grounds.

The Robert Smalls Monument Commission, made up mostly of legislators, last week unanimously approved a design and memorial location for the enslaved man who first gained fame for commandeering a Confederate ship in Charleston harbor in March 1862.

Choosing from three finalists, the commission chose a statue that depicts Smalls in a three-piece suit, at the height of his power in Congress.

“This depiction is important because Smalls should be viewed as possessing the same gravitas as historical figures such as Wade Hampton, Ben Tillman, James Byrnes, Strom Thurmond as depicted in monuments on the State House grounds,” said white state Rep. Brandon Cox.

The proposal needs action from a legislative committee and a full vote by the South Carolina General Assembly to become reality. The State Department of Administration and legislators are working to raise private money to build the Smalls monument in Columbia.

No price tag has been determined for the project. As of Tuesday, the commission has received $11,530 in donations, spokesperson Brooke Bailey told the Picket.

Artist Basil Watson of Lawrenceville, Ga., created the approved design.

“(Smalls, left) demonstrated from an early age a spirit of demanding equality, feeling that he was equal and capable,” said Watson, according to the South Carolina Daily Gazette. “I think this was the spirit that he carried throughout his life.”

At the start of the Civil War, Smalls, 23, was a pilot on the steamship CSS Planter. On the morning of May 13, 1862, Smalls led the takeover of the ship by its slave crew, sailed past the harbor's formidable defenses and surrendered the vessel to the Union blockade fleet. His wife and children were among those on board who gained freedom.

Smalls met with President Abraham Lincoln and lobbied him to recruit black men to serve in the Union army. The former slave served as a pilot on the ship USS Crusader.

Brown Memorials of Florence, S.C., submitted this design (Robert Smalls Monument Commission)

Smalls returned to his hometown Beaufort and bought his former master’s home. After the war, he served in South Carolina’s Legislature, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served several terms.

The congressman fought against the disenfranchisement of black voters across the South, according to the American Battlefield Trust.

He also fought against segregation within the military, advocated for compulsory education in South Carolina, opened a school for black children and published a newspaper, among other accomplishments.

As the Post and Courier newspaper pointed out, the monument will be on a 22-acre property in Columbia dominated by Confederate memorials. (Pate Studio design, right, Robert Smalls Monument Commission)

“Confederate Gen. Wade Hampton, who enslaved people, has a statue, as does Benjamin Tillman, the former governor and white supremacist whose brother George used violence and intimidation to rob Smalls of his seat in Congress before his colleagues eventually removed him from office.”

Watson’s design was straightforward, with a single likeness of Smalls, rising above panels on the base describing his service and patriotism.

One panel includes a famous line uttered by Small in 1895:

“My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be the equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.”

Suggested text for one of the statue's panels (Robert Small Monument Commission)

At last week’s commission meeting, a state senator at first favored the two other designs, which featured two to three statues depicting Smalls during different phases of his life, including his Civil War exploit.

Others disagreed.

Mike Shealy, who chairs the commission, and state Sen. Darrell Jackson, who is black, said Smalls should appear as other statues on the ground. A separate African-American monument on the grounds provides a wider story with more figures, they said.

The African-American monument on the Capitol grounds in Columbia (Library of Congress)

“The simplicity of the statue of one man on a pedestal who is equal to the other people that are memorialized on our State House grounds is the best depiction,” said Shealy.

The commission also released a map showing all the nearly two dozen monuments at the Capitol. Legislators said the location for the monument became after a tree branch fell. Officials later learned the tree was dying.

Black Rep. Jermaine Johnson said Smalls will stand near the visitor entrance to the State House and will provide a powerful reminder to schoolchildren about equal rights.

And, he said, visitors will be able to see the statues of Hampton and “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman (photo right, Wikipedia) from the location -- a reminder that Smalls overcame cruelties of the racist South.

Tillman, an agrarian populist, promulgated violence from groups who opposed Black rights and voting. A Clemson University biography says of him: "While bringing several progressive reforms to the state, he also was at the forefront of the movement to marginalize and disfranchise black Southerners further in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries." He helped eradicate some reforms championed by Smalls.

According to the Associated Press, despite cries from many to get rid of such memorials, state law requires legislative approval to remove statues of Confederates or white supremacists, or even add language detailing their racist deeds. 

That has been an impossible task in a state dominated by conservative Republicans, according to the AP.

So now a new chapter is being written.

The state that was the first to secede from the United States, and was ruled for generations by white supremacists, will place its first monument to a single African-American individual on its State House grounds.

Click Robert Smalls Monument Commission map below to see where his statue will stand (near the star, on the State House grounds in Columbia.

USS Monitor Center cleans the inside of one of two Dahlgren guns undergoing conservation; no cat remains found so far

Erik Farrell uses special drill on bore (Brock Switzer/The Mariners' Museum and Park)

USS Monitor conservators on Tuesday used a custom-built boring machine to remove encrusted marine line and sediment from inside the barrel of an XI-inch Dahlgren gun.

The Mariners’ Museum and Park in Newport News, Va., provided social media updates about what has been found in all the gunk: “So far, lots of coal, some pieces of crab and some seashells.”

But, the museum hastened, no remains of Lt. Whiskers, a black cat said to be a mascot on the innovative Union ironclad.

Francis B. Butts, a Monitor sailor who survived its sinking during a storm on Dec. 31, 1862, gave this account: “A black cat was sitting on the breech of one of the guns, howling one of those hoarse and solemn tunes which no one can appreciate who is not filled with the superstitions which I had been taught by the sailors, who are always afraid to kill a cat. I would almost as soon have touched a ghost, but I caught her, and placing her in another gun, replaced the wad and tampion; but I could still hear that distressing yowl.”

Conservators are drilling the ironclad’s two Dahlgren guns, which were housed in the turret and made famous in the USS Monitor's clash with the CSS Virginia.

“We accomplished our goals for yesterday, it went very well and are now busy with preparations for the next one," Tina Gutshall, conservation administrator for USS Monitor, told the Picket in an email Wednesday.

The gun is lowered before drilling (Brock Switzer/The Mariners' Museum and Park)

The cleaning of the second gun is tentatively scheduled for March 3.

“Once the guns are bored, the next step is going to determine now that we've exposed that area, how much the marine salts are going to come out," Will Hoffman, the museum’s director of conservation, told TV station WVEC:  “So once we go put it back in the solution, we'll let the chemistry treat it."

The museum wants the artillery pieces eventually to go on display with thousands of other artifacts.

The Monitor’s turret was raised off Cape Hatteras, N.C., in 2002. Numerous artifacts have been found in the years since as it, too, is being stripped of harmful concretion with electrochemical treatments and hand-held tools.

This project is focusing on getting rid of concretion inside the Dahlgrens.

(Brock Switzer/The Mariners' Museum and Park)

“Originally, that hollow cavity was filled with loose sand, sediment, coal and other debris from the sea floor,” conservator Erik Farrell told the Picket. Most of that was previously removed.

The barrels have had between 1" and 3" thickness of concretion covering them all the way down the bore and forward to the muzzle -- hence the need to clean the inside of the 11-foot-long guns.

(Brock Switzer/The Mariners' Museum and Park)

• See what was found in the second Dahlgren barrel

Remembering the day green troops fought

When two Virginia historians began looking for ways to commemorate the site of the landmark June 10, 1861, Battle of Big Bethel – an early clash of the Civil War -- they knew they faced some problems. But nearly a decade after they started, the site has been so transformed it will be dedicated at 10 a.m. Saturday as a walking park in Hampton. • Article