At North Atlantic Wharf, the families came aboard. Hannah, Elizabeth, Robert Jr., Clara. Susan Small — wife of the engineer John Small — her son Philip, and Susan’s sister. Annie White and Lavinia Wilson. The accounts of the NPS and other sources give a total of sixteen people who sought freedom aboard that night: the eight enslaved crewmen who participated, plus eight women and children, though the precise breakdown across sources is not consistent in every detail.
The Planter then turned and headed down the harbor.
## Past Castle Pinckney, Past Fort Johnson, Past Fort Sumter
The route south toward the harbor’s mouth required passing several Confederate installations in sequence. Castle Pinckney, a masonry fort on a small island in the harbor’s upper reaches, came first. Then Fort Ripley. Then Fort Johnson on the west bank of the channel. And finally, the main challenge: Fort Sumter itself, at the harbor’s mouth, the most heavily armed and most alert of the Confederate positions.
Fort Moultrie sat across the channel from Fort Sumter on Sullivan’s Island. A vessel passing through the main channel had to run between them, in what the NPS account describes as a crossfire position — both forts could reach any vessel in the channel simultaneously.
The Planter moved at its normal speed. This was essential. A vessel moving too fast would suggest urgency or flight. A vessel moving at its customary pace was simply another boat doing its business in the early morning, which was when supply and dispatch vessels often moved to take advantage of favorable tides.