o employment with John Simmons, who hired Smalls as a ship rigger in the winter and a coastal
             vessel sailor in the summer. It was during this employment that Smalls became an expert pilot of boats along the coasts of South Carolina and Georgia.
             In 1858, Smalls married Hannah Jones, a slave that was working as a hotel maid. According to Smalls, the marriage was not a bonding as a matter of love on his part, but as a matter of the household services a wife would render to him. (Miller 9) A daughter, Elizabeth Lydia, was born to the couple in 1859 and a son, Robert Jr., was born in 1861. Smalls made an agreement with his wife's owner to purchase his wife and daughter for the sum of $800. It is not known whether this or any other agreement included the purchase of his son. When Smalls had saved approximately $700 toward the purchase, he fled Charleston with his family, having never made payment toward the agreement.
             In 1861, Smalls accepted a job as a deck hand aboard the Planter, a cotton steamer. When the Civil War began, the Planter was pressed into service for the Confederacy. Smalls was soon promoted to wheelman. His position was actually that of pilot, but at the time Southerners did not assign this title to blacks. Smalls, seeking to obtain freedom for himself and his family, began planning to steal away with the Planter and turn it over to Union forces. On the evening of May 12, 1862, the Planter docked in Charleston. District standing orders, at the time, stipulated that at least one white officer remain aboard the boat at all times to prevent an uprising of black slaves and crewmen. On this particular night, however, Captain C. J. Relyea and all of his white officers had gone ashore to a
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