## What the Signals Actually Were
The specific content of the steam-whistle signals that Smalls gave at each Confederate installation has not been preserved in the historical record in a way that historians have verified.
This gap is worth acknowledging directly. Accounts of the escape often describe Smalls giving ‘the correct signal’ at Fort Sumter without specifying what that signal was. The NPS materials do not specify it. The reason is that the specific signal sequences — which were military intelligence that changed over time precisely to prevent unauthorized vessels from mimicking them — were not preserved in documents that have survived in accessible form. What was preserved was the outcome: the forts let the Planter through.
This is an appropriate level of historical humility. The fact that Smalls knew the signals is documented. The fact that he used them is documented by the result. The specific sequence of blasts — long, short, long; two long, one short; whatever combination it actually was on the morning of May 13, 1862 — is not documented in a way that historians have verified, and accounts that specify it are filling in a gap rather than reporting a fact.
Similarly, the specific words exchanged when the Planter passed Fort Sumter — if any words were exchanged — are not documented. The fort acknowledged the signal. The Planter passed. Whether a voice called out, whether a watchman at the parapet saw something that made him hesitate and then decide the vessel was legitimate, whether the acknowledgment was mechanical and routine — these details are not in the record. The escape is documented at the level of what happened; the granular moment-by-moment detail is reconstructed in popular accounts but not established in primary sources.