Capt. Moses Dallas
In 2007, OBMG honored Captain Moses Dallas (? - 1874), Pilot for the Savannah Squadron of the Confederate States Navy 1861-1864. Then, after faking his own death, he defected and became a USCT Union Navy Corporal. He was known as the best inland steamship pilot on the Georgia coast.
During the Civil War he contracted to work for the Confederate Navy’s Savannah Squadron and guided a nighttime assault on the blockader Water Witch in Ossabaw Sound. Killed in the battle, and buried with honors in Laurel Grove Cemetery, he became a black Confederate hero. But Civil War historians and black Savannah know that he faked his death, escaped to Jacksonville, Fla., and joined the Union Navy.
In common with many officers, he was responsible for his own uniforms and board, but was finding it difficult to make ends meet on his $80-per-month salary. He evidently spoke to Captain William A. Webb, commanding officer of the Savannah Naval Squadron in the spring of 1863 about resigning, for on May 31 Captain Webb wrote Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory about Pilot Dallas: "I have also been compelled to increase the pay of Moses Dallas from $80 to $100 per month in order to retain him. He is a colored pilot and is considered the best inland pilot on the coast." The Navy Department in Richmond, Va., replied six days later approving the pay hike.
Pilot Moses Dallas was third-in-command of the C.S.S. Savannah. He had guided the Confederate forces to the Union sidewheel steamer the U.S.S. Water Witch in the early morning hours of June 3, 1864. He was apparently killed in the small-arms fire that took place during the boarding of the U.S.S. Water Witch. On June 4, 1864, the Confederate States Navy ordered a coffin and a hearse for the funeral of Moses Dallas, the expense of $83 to be paid by the Confederate Navy.
Minutes of the April 25, 1870 meeting of the Ladies Memorial Association of Savannah address their efforts to purchase a stone at the cost of $40 to honor the Confederate service of the famed "black river pilot" Moses Dallas. General Robert E. Lee and General J. E. Johnson attending ceremonies in Savannah at the time donated their portraits for sale to raise funds for the association's project. But the project never came to fruition.
On August 27, 1864, almost three months after the Water Witch episode, Moses Dallas' name quietly reappeared on Union Navy enlistment records, and on March 9, 1865, he enlisted in Company E of the 128th United States Colored Infantry at Beaufort, South Carolina. Mustered out with the rank of corporal in October 1866, he rejoined his family in Jacksonville, Florida, where he remained until his death eight years later.
His surviving widow Harriet Dallas testified in a post war claim that with his salary from piloting the Confederate ships, "he purchased the freedom of his wife and daughter just before the Water Witch incident."