Fort Robert Smalls | |
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Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in United States | |
Type | American Civil War redoubt |
Site information | |
Controlled by | Union Army |
Site history | |
Built | 1863 |
Fort Robert Smalls was a Civil War redoubt built by free blacks for the defense of Pittsburgh in 1863. [1] [2]
It was named in honor of Robert Smalls, a man who escaped from slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina with his crew and their families by capturing a Confederate transport ship and piloting it to the safety of a Union blockade around the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina in 1862. [3]
According to historic preservationist Eliza Smith Brown, during the American Civil War, civic leaders in Pittsburgh ordered the construction of defensive structures, including forts and redoubts, in response to the threatened invasion of Pennsylvania by Confederate troops in 1863. Fort Robert Smalls was one of two of those installations which were known to have been built by black workers on McGuire's Hill. [4] [5]
It was named for Robert Smalls, a slave who commandeered a Confederate transport, the CSS Planter, and brought his family and others to freedom in the north. Its "four-to-five-foot-high earthen embankments" survived at the top of McGuire's Hill at the mouth of Becks Run in Arlington Heights [6] [7] until their 1930 destruction to make way for public housing. [8] Coordinates: 40°24′53″N79°57′38″W / 40.41472°N 79.96056°W
Allegheny County is a county in Pennsylvania, United States. It is located in Southwestern Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,250,578, making it the state's second-most populous county, after Philadelphia County. Its county seat is Pittsburgh. Allegheny County is part of the Pittsburgh, PA metropolitan statistical area and the Pittsburgh media market.
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Robert Smalls was an American politician, publisher, businessman, and maritime pilot. Born into slavery in Beaufort, South Carolina, he freed himself, his crew, and their families during the American Civil War by commandeering a Confederate transport ship, CSS Planter, in Charleston harbor, on May 13, 1862, and sailing it from the Confederate-controlled waters of the harbor to the U.S. blockade that surrounded it. He then piloted the ship to the Union-controlled enclave in Beaufort–Port Royal–Hilton Head area, where it became a Union warship. His example and persuasion helped convince President Abraham Lincoln to accept African-American soldiers into the Union Army.
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