The following is an article from the book Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader.

Born into bondage, Robert Smalls rose from slavery to the Halls of Congress. In between, he helped the Union win the Civil War by doing what no black American had ever done before -he commanded a naval vessel.

AT HOME ON THE WATER

Robert Smalls was born a slave on April 5, 1839, in the coastal town of Beaufort, South Carolina. His first taste of a sailor’s life came at 12 years old when his master hired him out to work at a shipyard in Charleston Harbor. Smalls took to it, displaying a natural talent for seamanship. By 19, he had risen to the highest sea rank available to a slave: a ship’s pilot. Although Smalls could neither read nor write, his photographic memory recalled every bar, shoal, and current in Charleston Harbor.

In 1858 Smalls married another slave, Hannah Jones, and two years later they had a son, Robert, Jr. Being a respected sea pilot, Smalls life was better than that of most slaves …but he was still a slave. Longing to be his own master, he set out to buy his family’s freedom. And he almost did it -Smalls had saved $700 of the $800 purchasing price when the Civil War broke out in 1861. Then everybody’s life was put on hold.

STEALING A SHIP

The Confederate army immediately put the 22-year-old Smalls to work doing what he did best: piloting a vessel. He was given the wheel of the CSS Planter (formerly the USS Planter), a 147-foot-long steamboat. With Smalls at the helm taking order from Captain Charles Relyea, the ship hauled ordnance and supplies to the rebel forts guarding Charleston. A few miles offshore lay a fleet of blockading Union ships, and Smalls knew that freedom awaited him in that blockade. He formed a plan.

First, he studied the voice and speech patterns of Captain Relyea. Smalls was raised speaking “gullah,” a creole dialect of English indigenous to the Sea Islands of South Carolina. Captain Relyea, on the other hand, spoke in the “propuh Suthuhn” dialect. After spending weeks secretly mimicking his captain, Smalls was ready.

On May 12, 1862, Captain Relyea attended a party and decided to spend the night ashore. With the captain and white crew landlocked, the black crew was left in charge of the ship, which was not uncommon -they were well within Southern strongholds, protected by the guns of Fort Sumter. Smalls had counted on this; he smuggled his wife, his son, and 13 other slaves aboard. On May 13 at 3AM, the ship slowly pulled away from the dock, supposedly to take its place as a picket ship guarding the harbor. Smalls put on the captain’s uniform -including the broad-brimmed hat, which shadowed his dark face- and sounded the proper whistle signals when the Planter passed Confederate forts. At 4AM, as the ship passed under the guns of Fort Sumter, he was ordered to halt and state his destination. Smalls mimicked Relyea’s voice, said all the right things, and was allowed to continue. When they were out of range of the rebel batteries, Smalls lowered the Confederate flag.

As the sun came up, the CSS Planter was sailing right into the Union blockade. The first ship she approached was the USS Onward -and her captain was preparing to fire on the Confederate vessel. But Smalls put their fears to rest when he waved a large white flag and shouted out a friendly greeting: “Good morning, sir! I have brought you some of the old United States guns!”

WAR HERO

The daring escape made headlines in the North, hailing Smalls for his cunning and guile. This led to a meeting with President Lincoln in August. Smalls so impressed the Union leader that Lincoln took the politically dangerous step of authorizing 5,000 blacks to be recruited for military service. Before the war ended three years later, more than 180,000 black American volunteers would serve in Lincoln’s army -most of them former slaves.

The federal government awarded Smalls $1,500 for capturing the Planter, but he still chose to enlist and fight for the Union. After making a recruiting tour of New York, Smalls was sent back to South Carolina and commissioned as 2nd Lieutenant, Company B, 33rd Regiment, United States Colored Troops. He was once again given the wheel of the renamed USS Planter, now part of the Union blockading fleet.

PROMOTION

In November 1863, the Planter took part in a futile attack on Fort Sumter with Smalls as pilot under Captain James Nickerson. When the ship was caught in a deadly crossfire from Confederate shore batteries, the captain deserted his post and ran below deck, hiding in the coal bin. Smalls took command, keeping the guns firing while he used his encyclopedic knowledge of Charleston harbor to maneuver the damaged ship to safety.

A Naval Board of Inquiry dismissed Nickerson for cowardice, but Smalls was again regarded as a hero …and was given his first command. His ship: the Planter, the same ship on which he had escaped two years earlier. In combat, Captain Smalls fought in 17 naval engagements; off duty, he studied with tutors to learn to read and write, skills which has been forbidden him as a slave.

CONTINUING THE FIGHT

When the war ended Smalls returned to Beaufort. Using the money he earned, he purchased the house in which he was born and moved his family into it (which now included two daughters and his recently freed mother). Smalls entered politics and served five non-consecutive terms in Congress. In 1897 the government belatedly recognized his wartime service by awarding him a $30-per-month veteran’s pension.

Robert Smalls died in Beaufort in February 23, 1915. His home has since been designated a National Historic Landmark. A naval cargo vessel, the USS Robert Smalls, was named in his honor. Beside Small’s grave is a statue with an inscription that sums up his life’s work: “My people need no special defense, for the past history of this country proves them to be the equal of any people, anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.”

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The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Fast-Acting Long-Lasting Bathroom Reader.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.

If you like Neatorama, you’ll love the Bathroom Reader Institute’s books – go ahead and check ‘em out!

Take a tour of the most photogenic sunken ships all over the world -or at least the part that’s underwater. It’s whole lot easier than diving down all those places yourself! Shown is a close-up of Tugboat Rozi, sunk off the coast of Malta. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user DiveKarma)

Here at the BRI,  we’re huge fans of Richard Zak’s books. They’re great bathroom reading. He has a new book coming out: The Pirate Hunter-The True Story of Captain Kidd. Here’s a teaser from his masterpiece, An Underground Education.

WORKIN’ FOR THE MAN

While the popular image of buccaneers is peg-legged, eye-patched rascals, the ultimate anti-authority free agents, roving the seas, plundering ships, raping women, and brawling, the reality is much worse. They did all that and worked for the government.

Prior to 1856, it was standard operating procedure for western nations either to commission privateers directly or to wink at the actions of freelance pirates, so long as those thieves were preying on the commerce of other nations. Piracy was often state-supported economic terrorism. Captain Kidd, for example, was no Joan of Arc, but he was no “Captain Kidd,” either.

MEET CAPTAIN KIDD

William Kidd

William Kidd (c. 1645-1701) was a plain-speaking, high-tempered Scotsman who had made his fortune as captain and ship owner, trading goods in the colonies. In 1696, the 51-year-old Kidd was a prosperous New York businessman, comfortably settled with his wife and family. That year, Kidd and his friend Robert Livingston connived with the newly-appointed governor of New England, Richard Coote, Earl of Bellamount, the King of England’s cousin, to receive an unusual privateering commission.

In times of war, wealthy investors routinely funded privateering vessels to attack the enemy’s merchant ships and divvy the plunder. This was an English naval tradition dating back to Sir Francis Drake. But what was extraordinary about this commission was that it also entitled Kidd to attack pirate ships of all nationalities and keep their booty -no questions asked. It was an amazing financial opportunity.

SMART INVESTMENT

Kidd’s royal commission -secured by Bellamount- did, in fact,

give and grant full Power and Authority to Captain William Kidd, Commander of the ship Adventure Galley …to apprehend, seize and take into Custody the said Thomas Too, John Ireland, Tho Wake, and William Maze, and all other Pirates, Free-booters and Sea-rovers, of what Nation whatsoever, whom he should find or meet with, upon the said Coasts or Seas of America, or in any other Seas or Parts, with their Ships and Vessels, and all such Merchandise, Money, Goods, and Wares as should be found on board of them.

The mission began as an attempt by Britain to crack down on four colonial pirates, but was cunningly expanded so that Kidd would have maximum leeway to capture “prizes” -non-English ships.

In addition to Livingston and Lord Richard, four of the most powerful men in England secretly invested the £6,000 it would cost to outfit the ship. The prospect of profit from this legal larceny was dizzying. If Kidd captured two large ships, the backers could easily received a hundredfold return on their investment in a year. In the official contract with Kidd, four obscure merchants were listed as the investors, but they were shills. The real backers were John Somers, Lord Chancellor of England; Sire Robert Wadpole, Earl of Orford, First Lord of the Admiralty; and two secretaries of state, the Earl of Romney and the Duke of Shrewsbury. The king was to receive 10% of the booty as well, “chiefly to show that he was a partner in the undertaking,” according to The Real Captain Kidd- A Vindication, by Sir Cornelius Dalton. Kidd and Livingston stood to receive 7.5% each, while if the haul totaled more than £100,000, Kidd was to be allowed to keep the ship.

SHAKY START

The Adventure Galley

The mission got off to a bad start in March 1696; Kidd and a London merchant handpicked 100-plus English sailors for the Adventure Galley, but before they departed the coast, a British man-of-war seized the bulk of his crew. Now, Kidd sailed to New York to round up a new crew, but his articles allowed him to offer the crew shares of only a quarter of the spoils (instead of the usual half) and there would be no regular wages; the voyage would be strictly “no purchase, no pay,” or in sailor slang, “no prey, no pay.”

Kidd was forced to sign the piratical scum of the New York wharf, out-of-work scallywags. Once out of the harbor, he had no luck whatsoever at finding pirate ships, and headed to the Indian Ocean. He was fired upon, but when he captured the vessel, it turned out to be a Dutch ship. His crew -led by gunner William Moore- voted to take her as a prize anyhow, but Kidd, pistols in hand, changed their minds. Kidd then spied a merchant ship and swung into action. Employing a standard battle tactic, he flew French colors to trick his adversary and lured the giant Quedagh Merchant to come alongside. When an officer of that ship boarded holding French papers of clear passage, Kidd hoisted the British flag and declared the ship captured. Although the Quedagh Merchant was obviously an Armenian ship with a crew of Moors and a few Christians aboard, the officer presented French papers, which made it a legitimate prize, given the state of war at the time between England and France. And it was a rich prize. The Quedagh Merchant was packed with fine cloths, silks, and jewels, worth perhaps as much as £400,000.

MUTINY!

Kidd who had taken another ship traveling with French papers hauled his prizes back to Ste.-Marie, in Madagascar. His articles stated that he must take captured ships back to Boston (or to London, if armed British escort appears) so that an Admiralty Court could rule on whether they were legitimate captures and could document the spoils.

In Madagascar stood the Mocha Frigate, a former merchant ship turned pirate by a man named Robert Culliford. When Kidd (with his mounted cannon) hit port, his pirates abandoned ship. Kidd had proposed that they capture the Mocha as well, but instead, his men swore they’d shoot him if he tried. Ninety-seven of them mutinied over to Culliford and promptly attacked Kidd.

Receiving no wage with Kidd, the most the men could hope for was a share of one-quarter of the spoils, if an admiralty court ruled in their favor in Boston; with Culliford, they might split up everything, and right away. Here’s how Kidd described what happened next:

The said Deserters came on board, and carried away Guns, Powder, Shot, small Arms, Sails, Anchors, Cables, Surgeon’s Chests, and what else they pleased; and threatened several times to murder the Narrator [i.e., Kidd]. Their Wickedness was so great, after they had plundered and ransacked sufficiently, [they] went Four Miles off to one Edward Weiche’s House, which his the Narrator’s chest had lodged, and broke it open; and took out Ten Ounces of Gold, 40 Pound of Plate, 370 Pieces of Eight, the Narrator’s Journal, and a great many Papers that belonged to him,  and the People of New York that fitted him out.

OUT OF LUCK

Kidd was left with 13 sailors; his original ship was leaking badly (requiring eight-man shifts to bail her out); and his prize was far too big to sail with his reduced crew. The date was early in 1699.

Kidd was two years past his contracted return date, and no doubt his powerful backers were getting nervous. And now the East India Company reported in London that “they had received some information …that Kidd had committed several acts of piracy, particularly in seizing a Moorish ship called the Quedagh Merchant.”

The vastly profitable East India Company had no desire to enrage the great mogul of India by allowing British pirates to prey upon Moorish ships, especially since the great mogul, a now-forgotten potentate, then controlled an enormous empire and could expel the Brits.

With a single order, Kidd was officially declared a pirate.

BAD TRIP

Captain Kidd spent six long months in Madagascar trying to round up a crew, then headed for Boston. When Kidd and his skeleton crew finally reached Anguillla in the West Indies and found out they were wanted for piracy, they were dumbfounded. Once again the crew started deserting. Kidd no longer had sailors enough to sail his prize to Boston, so he traded for a smaller ship complete with crew and moved an undisclosed portion of the remaining booty aboard. (How much booty has intrigued treasure hunters ever since.)

Kidd could have stayed in the Caribbean a very wealthy man. At least £10,000 of  treasure remained and possibly as much as £40,000 or even more. Instead he sailed north. In New York Harbor, he handed over the two French passes (which would clear him of the piracy charge) to an old friend to deliver to his backer, New England governor Coote, who was then in Boston.

SAVED?

Coote (as you remember, cousin to the king of England) sent the postmaster of Boston out the Block Island to give a message to Kidd. The note declared the governor was sympathetic to Kidd’s version of the events and then concluded:

I make no manner of doubt but to obtain the King’s pardon for you, and for those few man you have left who I understand have been faithful to you, and refused as well as you to dishonor the Commission you have from England …I assure you on my Word and Honour I will perform nicely what I have promised.

Richard Coote

Kidd, who was joined on ship by his wife and family, responded with great relief to the news that the governor would take up his cause; and he guessed aloud that the East India Company must have heard of acts of piracy committed by Captain Robert Culliford, using the munitied members of Kidd’s former crew. But, on July 1, 1699, when Kidd and his few remaining crew members sailed into Boston Harbor, Governor Coote promptly had them arrested.

England dispatched a Navy ship to ferry Kidd back to justice. The House of Commons sniffed a scandal and demanded that Kidd not be tried until it was back in session. Unfortunately for Kidd, that meant spending a year in Newgate Prison.

ON TRIAL

On March 6, 1701, the House of Commons began to examine Kidd’s papers. Included among them, as clearly stated in the Parliament papers, were Two French Passes from the ships Kidd had captured. Nonetheless, Kidd was ordered to stand trial in Admiralty Court -and it was specifically stated that his papers should be delivered there for his trial. The court then stunned Kidd by charging him not with piracy but with the murder of William Moore, the ship’s gunner.

Testimony from paid informants painted the following picture of the crime. While the ship was anchored off the coast of Africa, after more than a year without taking a single prize, Kidd called Moore a “lousy dog.” Moore replied: “If I be so, you have made me one.” Kidd, in a rage, swung an iron-hooped bucket, which caught Moore flush in the temple. Moore died the next day.

BETRAYED

Kidd claimed that he never meant to kill Moore, and that threat of mutiny had been strong at that time. Testifying for the Crown were two of Kidd’s crew who had mutinied, signed up with Culliford, and gone out on later pirate voyages; they were offered pardons in exchange for turning Crown’s evidence.

After one especially absurd statement, Kidd complained: “It signified nothing to ask any questions. The rogues will swear to anything.” Then later, he asked: “Have you not been promised your life to swear away mine?”

The judge intervened: “He is not bound to answer that question. He is very fit to be made as evidence for the Crown.”

It took the jury an hour to bring in a guilty verdict.

As for the piracy charges, the judge, Lord Chief Baron, shaped the trial so that it all hinged on whether or not Captain Kidd received French passes from the captured ships, which apparently never found their way to the Admiralty Court. The lord chief summed up:

And as to the French passes there is nothing of that appears by any proof; and for aught I can see, none saw them but himself, if there ever were any. “Four respected British officer’s testified to Kidd’s valor during the French war in the Caribbean and one noted that Kidd fought off a mutiny to prevent his ship from going ‘a-pirating.’”

But Kidd was convicted of piracy. When sentenced to death, he told the court: “My lord, it is a very hard sentence. For my part, I am the innocentest person of them all, only I have been sworn against by perjured persons.”

THE END?

In prison, Kidd refused to confess to the chaplain and refused repeated requests to cast blame on the ministers that backed up his mission. (Perhaps he was still hoping for a pardon.) On May 24, 1701, Captain William Kidd was brought to Execution Dock at Wapping. The noose about his neck, he kicked out unto eternity and the rope broke. Kidd would have to be re-hoisted up the ladder and turned off a second time. In the little waiting period, he told the chaplain at the gallows that his greatest sorrow was leaving his wife and children in New York without getting a chance to say good-bye.

The next day in Parliament, Lord Chancellor Somers admitted he had had a secret share in Kidd’s voyage but claimed there was nothing illegal in that. In fact, he pointed out that “owners of the said ship had lost their expenses and had not received any benefit from the grant.”

The East India Company soon after reported to the great mogul of India that the “evil pirate” Captain Kidd had been hanged. Britain’s inroads in India eventually led to conquering the entire subcontinent.

Robert Culliford, the pirate captain of the Mocha Frigate, applied for a pardon and, with a lawyer at his side, was granted amnesty by the Admiralty Court.

Kidd’s hard-earned estate was forfeited after his hanging, taken from his wife and children. Queen Anne used the money to found the Greenwich Hospital.

The British Admiralty dangled Captain Kidd’s dead body -encased in pine resin and bound by leather straps- for years from a specially constructed gallows over the Thames River to serve as a warning to other pirates.

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The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.

If you like Neatorama, you’ll love the Bathroom Reader Institute’s books – go ahead and check ‘em out!

The Mothball Fleet is the group of decommissioned Navy ships stored at Suisun Bay, just north of San Francisco. These ships served in conflicts going back to World War II, and now they are gradually being scrapped. Photographer Scott Haefner and friends managed to spend several days exploring and photographing these ships, despite security guards. Read about how they pulled off the caper, and see the collection of photos at Scott’s website. Link -via the Presurfer

(YouTube Link)

Julia Morley has built a tiny Lego ship in a bottle and made a time lapse video of the process. I admire the meticulous effort taken to create this modern twist on a traditional craft but even Morley herself concedes that the soundtrack is a bit annoying.

Link- Via Holy Kaw

In May of 2009, the missile-tracking ship General Hoyt S. Vandenberg was hauled out in the Gulf of Mexico. Planted explosives blew holes in the ship’s hull, and she sank to the bottom in just a couple of minutes. You can see the process in a time-lapse video. Deliberately sinking a ship sounds like an environmental crime on the surface, but the Vandenberg was carefully prepared: ten tons of asbestos and over 800,000 feet of electrical wiring was removed before she was sunk. The sinking was part of an environmental program to create artificial reefs where sea life -from coral and plankton to game fish- can live and reproduce.

The Vandenberg is certainly not the first ship to be deliberately sunk to create an artificial reef. The waters off the Florida Keys have become the grave site of the Coast Guard cutters Duane and Bibb and the U.S. Navy landing ship Spiegel Grove, and on the sandy bottom 20 or so miles out to sea from Pensacola lies an entire aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Oriskany—the largest ship in the world intentionally sunk as an artificial reef. Dozens of World War II cargo vessels known as Liberty ships have been submerged, or to use the proper jargon, deployed, all along the Gulf, Atlantic, and Pacific coasts.

National Geographic tells us the history of artificial reef programs and how they are used to encourage marine life to flourish. Link

(Image credit: David Doubilet/National Geographic)

Agriculture officials said they didn’t know what type of spiders were on the ship. But they said it’s a type that is not normally found on Guam and there was concern the spiders could damage the island’s environment.

“It’s not on Guam,” Torres said. “We don’t want it here.”

The ship was carrying housing units and accessories that were to be used at a work force village expected to house up to 18,000 temporary workers.

The M.V. Altavia had most recently ported in South Korea. The ship was told not to return to Guam. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Jason A. Samfield)

“They were so perfectly contoured that they were clearly part of a ship,” said A. Michael Pappalardo, an archaeologist with the firm AKRF, which is working for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to document historical material uncovered during construction.

By Wednesday, the outlines made it plain: a 30-foot length of a wood-hulled vessel had been discovered about 20 to 30 feet below street level on the World Trade Center site, the first such large-scale archaeological find along the Manhattan waterfront since 1982, when an 18th-century cargo ship came to light at 175 Water Street.

The ground where the boat was found had been undisturbed for 200 years. Back then, the site was much nearer the Hudson River. Link -via reddit

(Image credit: Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)

Pink Tentacle has larger versions of 14 beautiful travel posters produced by Japanese steamship companies. These were from the early 20th century, when travel itself was supposed to be as luxurious as the destination. Link

A Japanese shipbuilding company named IHI Marine United is developing a ship that can be powered entirely by rechargeable lithium batteries. It will be able to travel 80 km while carrying 800 passengers:

Its Zero Emission Electric Propulsion Ship will use batteries that can be recharged at charging stations in ports it visits. The plug-in ship powered by lithium-ion batteries would run without a diesel engine, thus cutting its carbon dioxide or nitrogen oxide emissions to zero.

The company hopes to have a commercial vehicle available in 2015.

Link via technabob | Photo: Far East Gizmos

But in the case of the 5,900 metric ton Viking Lady, Norwegian shipping company Eidesvik and its partners have gone further, installing a 320-kilowatt molten carbonate fuel cell that operates on liquefied natural gas (and can be reconfigured, if necessary, to run on methanol). Storage tanks for the hydrogen and carbon dioxide that gets the fuel cell started press up against the stern of the 92.2 meter-long ship (in case of explosion) as do the machines to regasify the fuel. The fuel cell operates at 650 degrees Celsius and is warm to the touch, even on a blustery, frigid day in Copenhagen’s harbor.[...]

The investment was made, in part, to get an understanding of fuel cell technology and how it might be applied to shipping, according to DNV’s Viking Lady project head Tomas Heber Tronstad. Initial estimates are that such fuel cells would cut CO2 emissions from an individual ship by 50 percent. But the investment was also made because Norway has a tax on nitrogen oxide emissions that paid an immediate return for installing gas rather than diesel engines, says Eidesvik CEO Jan Fredrik Meling. Compared to a traditional ship, even without using the fuel cell, the Viking Lady reduces nitrogen oxide emissions by 90 percent, CO2 emissions by 20 percent and eliminates sulfur dioxide and soot emissions.

Link | Photo: Fellowship

The term ghost ship can refer to a mysterious apparition of a ship when a ship is not really there, or it can refer to an abandoned ship found with no crew or passengers, usually under mysterious circumstances. Both kinds are listed in these ten stories spooky enough to share with anyone to whom you want to give nightmares. Pictured is the Baychimo, used in Arctic waters until it became trapped in ice in 1931. The crew was airlifted and the ship abandoned. However, the boat survived to mysteriously float on its own for decades. It was last seen in 1969. Link -via Unique Daily

Wanna-be pilots have Flight Simulator, Microsoft’s iconic computer game, but what about those who want to steer a cargo ship? Enter PlanetInAction’s "Ships", an online simulation that uses Google Earth to let you get in touch with your inner helmsman and steer your own fleet of ships from barges to the cruise ship Queen Mary 2.

Link | YouTube Clip – via Kris Abel’s Tech Life