Smalls, Robert (1839–1915), a black United States congressman and Civil War hero. A slave pressed into the Confederate Navy, he seized his ship, the Planter, and turned it over to Union forces. He served in the Union Navy, 1862–66, reaching the rank of captain. Smalls entered politics as a Republican and was a member of the South Carolina legislature, 1868–74. He was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives and served there longer than any other black during the Reconstruction period, 1875–79 and 1882–87. Smalls was born in Beaufort, South Carolina. He returned there at the end of his political career and was customs collector for the port there.