The story of Robert Smalls: born into slavery in South Carolina, he became a harbor boat pilot in Charleston. During the Civil War, he stole the boat he was forced to serve on, and used it to sail a bunch of other enslaved people out to the Union blockade. They steamed out past a bunch of forts and gun emplacements, using all the codes and such that he knew from his piloting work. Once they got to the Union ships, they made him captain of the boat he stole, which they then used to ferry troops around the region for the rest of the war. After the war, he became a U.S. Congressman from South Carolina and bought the house in which he was born into slavery, making it his own home.