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Robert Smalls, a slave, commandeers Planter and escapes At 04:00 on 13 May 1862, while her captain, C. J. Relyea, was absent on shore, Robert Smalls — a slave who was Planter's pilot — quietly took the ship from the wharf, and with a Confederate flag flying, steamed past the successive Confederate forts, saluting as usual by blowing her steam whistle. As soon as the steamer was out of range of the last Confederate gun, Smalls hauled down the Confederate flag and hoisted a white one. Then he turned Planter over to Onward of the Union blockading force. Besides Smalls, Planter carried seven other black men, five women, and three children to freedom. Moreover, in addition to the cargo of artillery and explosives, Smalls brought Flag officer Samuel Francis Du Pont valuable intelligence including word that the Confederates had abandoned defensive positions on the Stono River.

Lincoln became the first American president to be assassinated.

An 1864 Mathew Brady photo depicts President Lincoln reading a book with his youngest son, Tad

Historians argue that the agreement should not be called a compromise (Peskin, 1973). Others emphasize that the Republican party abandoned the Southern Blacks (DeSantis, 1982) to racist Democratic party rule. In any case, Reconstruction ended, and the supremacy of the Democratic Party in the South was cemented with the ascent of the "Redeemer" governments that displaced the Republican governments. After the Compromise of 1877, white supremacy generally caused the South to vote Democratic in elections for federal office (the "Solid South") until 1966