Complex sentence: On September 21,1862, a slave named William B. Gould escaped with seven other slaves by rowing a small boat down the Cape Fear River and out into the Atlantic Ocean where the USS Cambridge of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron picked them up as contraband.
Split into simpler sentences: On September 21,1862, a slave named William B. Gould escaped with seven other slaves. They rowed a small boat down the Cape Fear River and out into the Atlantic Ocean where the USS Cambridge of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron picked them up as contraband.