New Graphic Novel Spotlights Robert Smalls, Who Escaped Slavery on a Stolen Confederate Ship

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June 17, 2025

By Stephen Ruiz, Military.com

‘Defiant: The Story of Robert Smalls’ is a recently released graphic novel that tells the story of an escaped slave who secured his freedom during the Civil War by commandeering a Confederate ship to secure his and his family’s freedom. (Photo courtesy of Legion M)

Robert Smalls published a newspaper, established a transportation company and served five terms in the United States Congress. Before those laudable accomplishments, though, Smalls had to secure his freedom.

Born into slavery in South Carolina in 1839, Smalls escaped during the Civil War when he commandeered the Planter, a Confederate transport ship, and surrendered to the Union Navy at Charleston Harbor in May 1862. Smalls went on to do great things, but none of them would have been possible if he didn’t risk his life — and the lives of others — by getting himself and his family out of the South.

His incredible story so impressed screenwriter Rob Edwards (“Captain America: Brave New World”) that Edwards wrote “Defiant: The Story of Robert Smalls,” a graphic novel that is scheduled to be released on Thursday, June 19, 2025, which is Juneteenth — the federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery.

Until about three years ago, Edwards had no inkling who Smalls was.

“I consider myself fairly well-read, and I started researching it,” Edwards told Military.com in a phone interview. “I couldn’t believe all the things that this guy had done, and even worse, I did not know about it.”

[…]

Edwards discovered how Smalls, the pilot of the Planter, and the other Black crew members conspired to escape, recognizing what might be their only realistic opportunity when the ship’s three white officers went ashore for the night on May 13, 1862.

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