Be Free or Die (Cate Lineberry)

On the night of May 12, 1862, the military transport ship CSS Planter was docked in Charleston, North Carolina. After the ship’s white officers disembarked to spend the night ashore, the enslaved crew, led by 23-year-old Robert Smalls, brought their families aboard the ship and cast off. Their plan: sail past the Confederate checkpoints, with Smalls impersonating the captain and giving the proper response signals to the challenges, and deliver the ship, its cargo, and themselves to the Union fleet blockading the harbor – before the Confederates realized what was happening and sank them.