WEBVTT - The Sailor Who Escaped Slavery 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.480 Hey everyone, We've put together a survey for listeners of 0:00:04.519 --> 0:00:06.760 Medal of Honor and we want to hear from you. 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:09.240 Tell us what you love about the show, what we 0:00:09.280 --> 0:00:12.760 can improve on, or stories you think we've missed. We're 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:15.840 committed to making this show even better and you can 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.960 help to take the survey. Visit bit dot lee slash 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:27.320 MH survey. That's bit dot l y slash MH survey. 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.160 The link is also in our show notes below. 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:41.479 Pushkin. 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:49.159 The men of the gunboat USS Marblehead woke up to 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:54.080 the sound of cannon fire. It was blasting across the bow, 0:00:54.880 --> 0:01:00.000 splintering the wood of their ship. It was early Christmas morning, 0:01:00.520 --> 0:01:05.440 eighteen sixty three. The Marblehead was a Union Navy vessel 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:10.720 patrolling the slow moving Stono River in South Carolina, just 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:14.640 south of Charleston. The ship worked its way past the 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:21.399 tidal marshlands, past rice plantations and tiny towns, scanning for 0:01:21.520 --> 0:01:25.920 rebel activity. The men on the ship had no idea 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:31.520 that Confederate forces were hiding waiting. They had secretly placed 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:32.039 guns in. 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:33.400 The forest near the shore. 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:39.680 Now those guns were pointed right at the Marblehead, firing 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:45.200 their artillery, blowing holes in the ship and the ship's men. 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:50.120 The Union sailors ran up from their cabins below decks, 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:54.200 some of them still in their night shirts. They sprinted 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:58.480 to their battle stations. In their midst was a young 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:03.000 man named Robert Blake. He raced back and forth to 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:06.560 the hold of the ship, bringing boxes of gunpowder to 0:02:06.640 --> 0:02:11.400 one of the main guns. The Marblehead's rifles boomed and shook, 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:17.880 sending fire to shore. The rebel forces returned fire. Sailors 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:18.880 fell wounded to. 0:02:18.840 --> 0:02:21.640 The ship's deck. It was a bloody scene. 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:27.760 More than anyone aboard, Robert knew that they had to 0:02:27.919 --> 0:02:31.880 keep the Confederate forces at bay, not just to save 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:37.120 their ship, but because Robert understood something else. If he 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:42.320 was captured, some of those Confederate soldiers might recognize him 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:47.000 an enslaved man who had escaped from a plantation not 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:51.800 that far away, the kind of man those Confederates hated 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:53.359 most of all. 0:02:57.639 --> 0:02:58.200 I'm Jr. 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:03.560 Martinez, and this is Medal of Honor Stories of Courage. 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:06.600 The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:10.840 the United States, awarded for gallantry and bravery and combat 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.200 at the risk of life, above and beyond the call 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:14.799 of duty. 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:17.440 Each candidate must be approved. 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:19.360 All the way up the chain of command, from the 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:23.079 supervisory officer in the field to the White House. This 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:27.440 show is about those heroes, what they did, what it meant, 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.200 and what their stories tell us about the nature of 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:36.680 courage and sacrifice. Today we'll explore the story of Robert Blake, 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:40.200 the first Black sailor to receive the Medal of Honor. 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:41.920 Blake served in. 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.760 A cool and brave manner, according to his commanding officer, 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:49.600 but that doesn't make him an anomaly on that ship 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.600 or any other Union vessel. He was one of many 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:59.040 black sailors to serve honorably during the Civil War. They 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:03.160 were forced that helped change the trajectory of the whole conflict, 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:07.280 But they are also a group that we know very 0:04:07.320 --> 0:04:07.960 little about. 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:10.360 At a time that was. 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:14.680 Dangerous for any formally enslaved person in the South, these 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:18.880 black sailors took on even more risk, and they did 0:04:18.920 --> 0:04:22.559 it to fight for a country they believe could be better. 0:04:23.640 --> 0:04:28.040 Would be better not just for them, but for everyone 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:47.680 who came after. I'm gonna preface this episode by saying 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:51.960 we don't know all that much about Robert Blake, which 0:04:52.040 --> 0:04:57.919 means two things. First, there's a little speculation involved, a 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.799 bit more than we usually have in an E episode. Second, 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:06.719 it's kind of like a detective story. So we found 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:11.119 a detective. We'll meet him in a bit. Let's start 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:15.279 with what we know for sure. Robert Blake was enslaved 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.800 at the Oak Grove plantation in South Carolina. It was 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:22.360 located on the South Santee River, just six or seven 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:23.919 miles from the Atlantic coast. 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:26.839 Oak Grove was actually one of three. 0:05:26.560 --> 0:05:31.000 Plantations owned by a man named Arthur Middleton Blake. He 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:35.000 came from a long line of plantation owners. His family 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:38.479 had been enslaving people for more than one hundred years. 0:05:39.839 --> 0:05:43.200 The name Oak Grove I make it seem like some 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:48.680 idellic setting, but the reality was very different. There were 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:56.720 deadly mosquito born illnesses like malaria and yellow fever, poisonous snakes, alligators. 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:02.000 But if the environment was inhospitable, the work was even 0:06:02.360 --> 0:06:08.840 worse because these were rice plantations and cultivating rice was backbreaking, 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:14.360 dangerous work. It was done by hundreds of enslaved people 0:06:14.680 --> 0:06:21.200 of African descent, toiling without a break day after brutal day. 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:27.160 And that's where our hero Robert Blake was born, And 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:30.440 to add to the confusion, he wasn't the only Robert 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:34.599 Blake who lived at Oak Grove. Many enslaved people born 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:37.760 there were given the last name Blake. It was a 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:42.640 way to show who their slaveholder was. Our Robert Blake, 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:46.520 the Medal of Honor recipient, was most likely born around 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:51.240 eighteen forty. The fact that he made it through childhood 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:55.960 was a miracle. On rice plantations, more than half of 0:06:56.120 --> 0:07:00.680 black children did not survive to age fifteen. Like other 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:05.400 enslaved children, he wouldn't have had any kind of formal education. 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:11.200 Enslaved children were often separated from their parents. Maybe this 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:15.720 was true of Robert. It's impossible to know, but what 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:18.800 is pretty certain is that as soon as he was 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.680 able to work, he would have been out in the 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:27.160 rice fields, digging and planting and harvesting from sun up 0:07:27.640 --> 0:07:35.280 to sundown. And then, in eighteen sixty one, shots were 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:39.920 fired just forty miles away at Fort Sumter, and the 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:44.200 Civil War began. For Robert and the rest of the 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.680 residents of Oak Grove, the world they knew was about 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:53.640 to massively change. For one thing, Arthur Middleton Blake, the 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:58.240 owner of Oak Grove, fled the United States. He left 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:02.640 for England a week after Fort sumterfell in April of 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:07.320 eighteen sixty one. The next key thing that happened. The 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:11.160 Union decided to set up a blockade to keep trade 0:08:11.160 --> 0:08:17.240 ships from entering or leaving the Confederate States. This had 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:22.120 two purposes, to prevent the rebels from getting supplies like ammunition, 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:26.080 and to keep them from trade with Europe, cutting off 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.640 their source of income. But while the Union wanted to 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:34.600 create a blockade, the Confederates were equally set on breaking it. 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:39.480 Rebel blockade runners would find holes in the Union naval lines, 0:08:39.960 --> 0:08:43.160 then they would zip through them in small boats loaded 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:47.439 with goods for waiting European ships. So the Union Navy 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:51.920 set up bases in Confederate territory to stop those blockade runners. 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:56.640 In South Carolina, they went to Port Royal, close to Charleston, 0:08:57.520 --> 0:09:01.240 an area that they called the Low Country. It had 0:09:01.280 --> 0:09:07.120 a ton of plantations, including Arthur Blake's. Now you have 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:11.520 to imagine that the enslaved people on Blake's plantation knew 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:16.600 something big was up. The war was suddenly so close. 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.199 They must have looked at the unionships on the horizon 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:23.200 and thought, is our world about to change. 0:09:24.400 --> 0:09:31.160 Do we dare to hope. 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:31.800 Most of the local plantation owners fled to England like 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:36.120 Arthur did, or further inland where it was safer, which 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:40.360 makes you wonder did those owners really think that the 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:45.600 people that enslaved would just stay there, keep tending to 0:09:45.679 --> 0:09:49.600 the rice, wait patiently for the war to end, and 0:09:49.640 --> 0:09:56.640 they're enslavers to return. Okay, brief history refresher here. There's 0:09:56.679 --> 0:10:01.200 something called the Fugitive Slave Act. It meant anyone, even 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:06.800 Union soldiers, were ordered by law to return escaped enslave 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:10.800 people to their owners. And in the earliest days of 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:15.000 the war, Union soldiers in the South followed that law 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:21.480 and returned runaway slaves. But then something sort of incredible happened. 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:26.079 A Union general in Virginia decided, I'm not playing by 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:31.319 that rule anymore. He refused to return three escaped enslave 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:36.560 men to their Confederate slaveholder. He figured that a Virginia 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:40.160 had seceded from the Union, so federal laws like the 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:45.800 Fugitive Slave Act no longer applied, and b just like 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.320 anything else the Union army might seize from the enemy, 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:54.200 those escaped slaves were contraband, so there was no point 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:58.280 in slaveholders asking for them back. The Union army would 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:03.520 hang on to them and give them freedom. Thanks word 0:11:03.640 --> 0:11:09.760 traveled fast. Soon enslaved people across the South were escaping 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:14.520 and joining Union troops wherever they could find them. This 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:18.240 generated a ton of good press and goodwill in the North. 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:24.280 Pretty soon the whole point of the conflict began to change. 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:28.640 It became a war to free the slaves, which brings 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:33.160 us back to Oak Grove Plantation. By June of eighteen 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:36.240 sixty two, it had become a posting for a regiment 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:39.840 of Confederate soldiers. Since it was on the Santee River, 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:43.760 it was a perfect spot for blockade runners to sneak 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:49.640 their cargo past the Union naval fleet. Naturally, the Navy 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.800 wanted to stop this kind of activity, so they had 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:56.479 ships from the base at Port Royal patrolling the coastline 0:11:56.559 --> 0:11:59.920 and rivers, and on June twenty fifth. 0:12:00.120 --> 0:12:02.600 Three Union ships steam past Oak Grove. 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:07.640 The Confederate troops were heading but they couldn't help themselves. 0:12:08.160 --> 0:12:12.160 They fired on the last ship and the convoy. There 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.760 were marines on those Union ships, and you know marines, 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.920 they were very happy to get off the boats and 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:24.520 bring the fight to land. As the Union ships returned fire, 0:12:24.960 --> 0:12:28.600 a group of sixty marines and sailors got into rowboats 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:32.480 and came ashore. They raced to a Confederate battery, a 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.760 gun position in the woods, but when they got there 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:41.400 it had been deserted. The rebels shooters had fled. Then 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:45.199 the Union troops went to the plantation itself. They discovered 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.480 a cache of weapons and proof that the spot had 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:52.560 been used by blockade runners, so they burned the house, 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:58.280 the mill, and a reported one hundred thousand bushels of rice. 0:12:59.840 --> 0:13:02.760 The enslaved people of Oak Grove watched the fire burn 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:06.959 Arthur Blake's property. They saw the Union men in their 0:13:07.080 --> 0:13:12.600 sharp navy blue uniforms, and they realized now is the 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:18.040 time to escape. So four hundred of them, pretty much 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:23.200 everyone enslaved at Oak Grove grab what they could. They 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:27.720 raced to the Union ships, and in their midst was 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:41.760 a young man named Robert Blake. As I mentioned earlier, 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.520 we know so little about Robert Blake that we needed 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:47.199 the help of a detective. 0:13:48.280 --> 0:13:49.360 He's Joseph P. 0:13:49.640 --> 0:13:55.199 Ready, Professor emeritus at Howard University. He is the expert 0:13:55.320 --> 0:13:58.440 on the experiences of black men in the Navy, during 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:02.600 the Civil War. And yet even he thinks Robert Blake 0:14:02.679 --> 0:14:05.800 is a mystery. There's so much we don't know. 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:08.880 We don't know he was married and if she had 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:10.120 any children. I'm what have you. 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.440 Here's what we can tell you about Robert Blake. He 0:14:14.600 --> 0:14:17.720 stood five feet five and had a dark complexion. 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:19.800 What we're not so. 0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:24.400 Sure about his exact age, but Professor Reidy checked the 0:14:24.480 --> 0:14:25.240 records on this. 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.080 Now when her shows up on a muster roll, he's 0:14:28.160 --> 0:14:31.040 listed as age twenty two. That seems to be the 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:32.520 sensible age that he was. 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:38.480 So Robert, along with hundreds of other enslaved people, left 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.000 Oak Grove as the plantation burned. They got on one 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:45.400 of those three Union ships. They were taken to a 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:49.320 refugee camp near the naval base in Port Royal. It 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:54.280 was called North Island. Refugee camps for escaped slaves had 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:58.520 popped up everywhere the Union troops were. They were nicknamed 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:03.360 contraband camps. They were away for communities to stay together, 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:08.240 to take care of one another, raise crops, and get jobs, 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:14.840 paid jobs, probably for the first time ever. Of course, 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:18.840 the contraband camps were still deep in Confederate territory, so 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:24.320 they weren't really safe. In July of eighteen sixty two, 0:15:25.040 --> 0:15:28.920 Union commanders learned that five hundred rebels were preparing to 0:15:29.000 --> 0:15:34.240 attack North Island quote with the intention of destroying the contrabands, 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:40.520 which number seven hundred men, women and children. But it 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:44.720 was far far better than life on implantation, and it 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:48.560 showed people that the Navy and the Union wasn't just 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.680 a way to escape slavery. It was the basis for 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:54.720 a whole new life and a whole new cause. 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:59.760 It didn't take long to realize that, especially on coast 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.840 the or along the river banks, that US naval vessel 0:16:04.000 --> 0:16:08.440 potentially were a place of refuge, and that presented an 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:11.720 opportunity for them to say, we will do whatever we 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:15.080 can to help defeat the slaveholder's rebellion. 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:19.320 In the meantime, the Navy looked at the men in 0:16:19.360 --> 0:16:22.920 the contraband camps and thought we would love their help. 0:16:24.520 --> 0:16:29.440 One of the officials and Lincoln's administration realized that African 0:16:29.480 --> 0:16:35.200 Americans were fleeing slavery and seeking the refuge upon naval vessel. 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:38.680 They realized here was a source of manpower that they 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:40.080 could put the good use. 0:16:40.920 --> 0:16:44.760 So they started recruiting them to join. This wasn't an 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:50.120 entirely surprising turn of events for Starters. The Navy had 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:53.880 long allowed black men to enlist, and they weren't even 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:57.800 segregated like they were in the Army back then. They 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:01.240 couldn't be because of the cramp orders on the ships. 0:17:02.120 --> 0:17:06.639 At first, their numbers were small, like five percent, but 0:17:06.720 --> 0:17:11.560 as the war heated up, so did enlistments. By the 0:17:11.640 --> 0:17:15.919 summer of eighteen sixty two, when we meet Robert, it 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:20.800 was more like fifteen percent. In fact, more than eighteen 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:24.199 thousand black men served in the Union Navy during the 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:28.520 Civil War. Many came from up North and had always 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:31.840 been free. They were allowed to work their way up 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:37.919 the ranks, from boy the lowest to signal quartermaster. But 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:42.479 the newer conscripts, the formerly enslaved ones, were given a 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:50.880 new designation, not boy, but contraband. Unfortunately, these new sailors 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:54.399 were treated as if they were less intelligent and even 0:17:54.840 --> 0:18:00.440 less strong. They were weak, the reasoning went, because they'd 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:05.320 been worked almost to death on the plantations. But that 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:10.000 was by no means true. One Union commander said, quote, 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:15.879 they fought energetically, bravely, none more so they felt that 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:19.439 they were working on the deliverance of their own race. 0:18:22.160 --> 0:18:24.679 Giving black men the chance to fight for the Union 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:29.080 felt like a path towards civil rights. The famous statesman 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:32.760 Frederick Douglass wrote quote, Let the black man get an 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.359 eagle on his button and a musket on his shoulders, 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:40.200 and bullets in his pockets, and there is no power 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:44.840 on earth or under the earth that can deny that 0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:49.480 he has earned the right to citizenship in the United States. 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:54.000 We've seen this so many times before in this series, 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:59.639 from Mary Walker to Macario Gottacia, people seeing their military 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:03.879 survey as a way to become more fully part of 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:08.760 America with all of its rates, from voting to citizenship 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:10.600 to freedom itself. 0:19:11.720 --> 0:19:13.400 The Union Navy used. 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:15.720 That pitch as they walked through the Contraband camp in 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:16.359 North Island. 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:21.280 Military and naval recruiters were suggested to the men, you 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:23.520 must wipe for your freedom. That's the way you're going 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:26.080 to secure it. You're going to help the UITs defeat 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:29.159 the Confederacy, and then of course of doing that, you 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:31.560 will free yourselves and you will free your pamia. 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:37.399 On July third, the Navy asked for sixty volunteers to 0:19:37.440 --> 0:19:40.720 go to Port Royal for duty on the USS Vermont. 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:45.920 Robert was one of them. Almost all of the enlisted 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:49.040 men on the Vermont had African ancestry, and they had 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:53.840 originally come from plantations up and down the coast. They 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:58.320 worked as laborers because the Vermont wasn't a warship. It 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:02.000 was a supply station, a warehouse for all the things 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:07.160 as sailor would need, clothing, ammunition, or letters from home. 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:11.280 It was also the entry point for men just joining 0:20:11.320 --> 0:20:14.919 the naval service. That's where Robert would have been trained. 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:19.520 It had another benefit to it kept him close to 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:22.320 his community. 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.720 The people who escaped from the Blade plantation with them, 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:29.080 whom he would have considered a family of thought. If 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:31.840 they were nearby when he was stationed on the Vermont, 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.600 the possibility of interacting with them could have meant that 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:39.119 he and other men could have maintained that sense of 0:20:39.160 --> 0:20:41.560 community even while they were enabled servants. 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.880 And in a world that had been so hard and 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:50.040 so painful, you can imagine how much that community might 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.879 mean to Robert. So he worked on the USS Vermont, 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:58.760 most likely as a longshoreman, hauling supplies onto the ship. 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:04.359 Not glamour, of course, but a solid pain job that 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:07.879 only lasted about two months. Then he was assigned to 0:21:07.920 --> 0:21:13.960 a gunship, the USS Marblehead. There he would be fighting 0:21:14.600 --> 0:21:37.240 for his liberty and his life. Just around daybreak on 0:21:37.280 --> 0:21:41.840 December twenty fifth, eighteen sixty three, the sound of cannon 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:47.119 fire burst through the quiet South Carolina morning. Shot after 0:21:47.320 --> 0:21:51.840 shot came from shore, catching everyone on the crew by 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:58.600 total surprise. The Captain Richard W. Mei came running up 0:21:58.640 --> 0:22:02.960 from his cabin. He was only twenty six, a skinny 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:07.960 guy with big, sad eyes and a wispy handlebar mustache. 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:09.240 Mead was still. 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:12.720 Wearing his night shirt and slippers, gripping his sword in 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:17.280 one hand and his revolver in the other. The Marblehead 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:20.240 was on duty in the Stono River. It was part 0:22:20.280 --> 0:22:24.880 of the blockade protecting troops who were working nearby, and 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:32.879 it was completely unprepared for battle. For one thing, the 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:37.120 crew was shorthanded down to seventy men from the usual 0:22:37.200 --> 0:22:42.359 one hundred, and the ship was partly disabled. One of 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:46.440 the boilers was being repaired, and the crew had been 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:49.360 getting ready to wash down the deck, so they had 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:55.159 pointed their largest gun inward towards the middle of the ship, 0:22:55.920 --> 0:23:00.720 not out towards the enemy. The shots kept coming from shore. 0:23:01.600 --> 0:23:05.439 The Confederates had hidden cannons behind some earthworks in the woods. 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:09.840 They had been planning this attack for a while. The 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:13.360 goal was to disable the Marblehead and capture its men, 0:23:14.119 --> 0:23:18.240 that included the roughly one hundred and fifty Union troops 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:23.520 stationed nearby. Captain Mead shouted for his men to assume 0:23:23.640 --> 0:23:27.919 battle stations, and Robert Blake went to work. He was 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:32.240 a powder man, sometimes called the powder boy. His job 0:23:32.359 --> 0:23:35.719 was to carry gunpowder from the powder magazine to the 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:40.320 guns on the deck. The magazine was tucked away and 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:44.840 designed to avoid explosions or fires by keeping the gun 0:23:44.920 --> 0:23:50.520 powder safe. So powder men were usually young, small and fast. 0:23:51.359 --> 0:23:54.120 They had to be able to squeeze between the tight 0:23:54.160 --> 0:23:57.760 spots on the ship where the powder was kept. Mead 0:23:57.960 --> 0:24:00.600 ordered the Marblehead to quickly move clars closer to the 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:05.200 shore and to the Confederates. That way, the ship would 0:24:05.200 --> 0:24:10.480 be harder to hit. Then he ordered the Marblehead's guns 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:15.560 to be fired. As the sailors got ready, blast kept 0:24:15.560 --> 0:24:21.080 coming from shore. Steel and wood fragments splintered across the deck. 0:24:22.359 --> 0:24:26.600 In the first fifteen minutes, three Union sailors had been killed, 0:24:27.480 --> 0:24:32.239 several more were wounded. Mead later wrote that quote the 0:24:32.359 --> 0:24:38.520 decks were slippery with blood. Robert was the powder man 0:24:38.560 --> 0:24:42.400 for a twenty pounder rifle. It looked like a cannon, 0:24:42.920 --> 0:24:45.399 and it was located at the front of the ship, 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:51.399 out in the open, totally unprotected from enemy fire. He 0:24:51.440 --> 0:24:54.560 would have been running back and forth from the powder 0:24:54.640 --> 0:25:01.040 magazine to the rifle, up and down, over and over, 0:25:02.080 --> 0:25:07.879 exposed to fire every time he reached the deck. Robert 0:25:07.880 --> 0:25:11.640 had been on that boat since September. He knew, of course, 0:25:11.720 --> 0:25:14.960 that he would face danger, and he was ready. 0:25:15.720 --> 0:25:19.000 It was not yet we're fighting for the freedom of 0:25:19.680 --> 0:25:25.320 enslaved South Carolinian or all enslaved people throughout the country. No, 0:25:25.520 --> 0:25:29.280 it was literally their family and their homes and people 0:25:29.320 --> 0:25:31.800 that they knew and they loved, and they hoped to 0:25:31.800 --> 0:25:33.400 spend their reck with their lives. 0:25:33.080 --> 0:25:38.480 With That love and commitment must have been an engine 0:25:38.560 --> 0:25:43.199 for his courage. But there was something else sparking that 0:25:43.320 --> 0:25:47.280 bravery as well, a knowledge of what waited for him 0:25:47.400 --> 0:25:52.680 if they failed, if he was captured. Being a prisoner 0:25:52.800 --> 0:25:56.199 during the Civil War was horrific. The death rate of 0:25:56.240 --> 0:26:01.520 POW's was as high as thirty percent, but the fate 0:26:01.560 --> 0:26:06.280 of men like Robert who were formerly enslaved fighting for 0:26:06.359 --> 0:26:12.639 the Union was much much worse. The battle went on, 0:26:13.800 --> 0:26:17.239 a sailor was cut into by a round from the 0:26:17.280 --> 0:26:24.280 Confederate cannon. The men must have been screaming, screaming orders, 0:26:24.400 --> 0:26:30.040 screaming from the pain, but according to later reports, Robert 0:26:30.160 --> 0:26:30.840 kept us cool. 0:26:32.359 --> 0:26:36.240 He was fulfilling years at Zion duty under extremely stressful 0:26:36.320 --> 0:26:40.440 and dangerous circumstances, and he was able to keep doing 0:26:40.480 --> 0:26:44.640 it at a rather extraordinary pace throughout the engagement. 0:26:46.119 --> 0:26:50.440 Years later, me described quote the excellent manner in which 0:26:50.480 --> 0:26:55.800 he served his gun, his coolness, intrepidity, and high spirits, 0:26:56.240 --> 0:26:59.280 and the merry laugh with which he cheered his comrades 0:26:59.600 --> 0:27:03.479 under this severe and galling fire of the enemy. 0:27:03.560 --> 0:27:05.720 He seemed wholly insensible to fear. 0:27:06.480 --> 0:27:09.280 He would cut jokes with his comrades as he passed 0:27:09.280 --> 0:27:12.720 along to the magazine with his box under his arm. 0:27:13.160 --> 0:27:16.840 He showed a marked degree of intelligence and forethought. During 0:27:16.880 --> 0:27:21.560 the hottest part of the fight. The battle went on 0:27:21.720 --> 0:27:25.880 for an hour and a half. Robert's gun fired seventy 0:27:26.000 --> 0:27:30.040 two times, a super high number when you consider how 0:27:30.160 --> 0:27:32.680 much work it took to fire a gun back then. 0:27:33.520 --> 0:27:37.760 But his energy didn't flag, and by eight am the 0:27:37.800 --> 0:27:42.640 skirmish was over. The men of the Marblehead were victorious. 0:27:44.359 --> 0:27:47.560 Three days after the battle, Mead went ashore with his 0:27:47.680 --> 0:27:50.919 men and took the rebels guns. It was the first 0:27:51.119 --> 0:27:56.119 Union naval victory in more than two years, and Robert 0:27:56.359 --> 0:28:01.520 would get the credit he deserved. Need was determined that 0:28:01.600 --> 0:28:04.680 Robert would be honored for his brave actions of Christmas 0:28:04.760 --> 0:28:10.240 Day eighteen sixty three. First, he ensured that Robert got 0:28:10.240 --> 0:28:15.560 a promotion to seamen, leaving his contraband label behind him 0:28:15.880 --> 0:28:21.440 for good. And Robert, along with three other sailors, received 0:28:21.440 --> 0:28:25.560 the Medal of Honor. The Order for the Metal reads quote, 0:28:26.240 --> 0:28:33.120 Robert Blake, serving as powder boy, displayed extraordinary courage, alacrity, 0:28:33.520 --> 0:28:38.560 and intelligent in the discharge of his duties under trying circumstances, 0:28:38.800 --> 0:28:43.560 and merited the admiration of all. Robert Blake would be 0:28:43.600 --> 0:28:46.840 the first Black sailor to receive the Medal of Honor. 0:28:51.800 --> 0:28:55.600 Robert re enlisted. He was on the USS Vermont, where 0:28:55.600 --> 0:28:58.479 he had started the war, at least through the summer 0:28:58.560 --> 0:29:04.920 of eighteen sixty four, and then well, our trail goes cold. 0:29:06.040 --> 0:29:12.320 Robert Blake just vanishes. One possibility is that he stayed 0:29:12.320 --> 0:29:16.440 in South Carolina. So many formally enslaved people did after 0:29:16.480 --> 0:29:21.040 the war. That was the place they knew, filled with 0:29:21.160 --> 0:29:26.280 the people they loved, and record keeping back then wasn't great, 0:29:26.920 --> 0:29:32.120 particularly for black folks. But maybe Robert didn't stay in 0:29:32.160 --> 0:29:37.600 South Carolina. Our detective Professor Reedy points out that by 0:29:37.680 --> 0:29:40.320 now Robert was a seasoned sailor. 0:29:41.440 --> 0:29:44.960 He had naval experienced at that point, and this is 0:29:45.000 --> 0:29:46.880 not the say he stayed in the navy, because he 0:29:46.920 --> 0:29:51.120 apparently did not, But he could have continued to work 0:29:51.160 --> 0:29:51.880