Stone fleet
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Stone_fleet".

The Stone Fleet consisted of a fleet of aging ships (mostly whaling ships) purchased in New Bedford and other New England ports, loaded with stone, and sailed south during the American Civil War by the Union Navy for the specific purpose of sinking and thus blocking the entrance into Charleston Harbor, South Carolina in hopes of preventing blockade runners from supplying Confederate interests. Although some sank along the way and others were sunk near Tybee Island, Georgia, to serve as breakwaters, wharves for the landing of Union troops, the majority were divided into two lesser fleets. One fleet was sunk to block the south channel off Morris Island, and the other to block the north channel near Rattlesnake Shoals off the present day Isle of Palms in what proved to be failed efforts to block access the main shipping channels into Charleston Harbor.[1]

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History

Various old ships, specifically purchased by the Navy for this purpose, were loaded with stone and sand, or filled with dirt, then towed to a designated spot and sunk as a hazard to all craft that passed. Twenty-four whaleships were sunk in Charleston Harbor by Captain Charles Henry Davis, beginning on 19 December 1861. A second fleet of 12 to 20 vessels was sunk in nearby Mafitt's Channel in 1862. The operation was under the direction of Samuel Francis DuPont, Flag Officer commanding the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Confederate general Robert E. Lee called the measure "an abortive expression of the malice and revenge" of the North.

Historians disagree as to the success of the Stone Fleet, since other channels of the Charleston Harbor remained open and the ships broke up in a year or two. However, others note that sufficient time was given for the North to build more gunboats to patrol the harbor.

The event inspired Herman Melville to write the poem entitled, "The Stone Fleet".

List of ships in the Stone Fleet

List of ships in the second fleet

  • America (ship) 418 tons
  • Dove (bark) 151 tons
  • Edward (bark) 274 tons
  • Emerald (ship) 518 tons
  • India (ship) 366 tons
  • Jubilee (bark) 233 tons
  • Majestic (bark) 297 tons
  • Marcia (bark) 356 tons
  • USS Margaret Scott (bark) 330 tons This ship was bought from the US Marshall in New Bedford, after it had been confiscated as a slave ship.
  • Mechanic (ship) 335 tons
  • Messenger (bark) 216 tons
  • Montezuma (ship) 424 tons
  • Newburyport (ship) 341 tons
  • New England (ship) 368 tons
  • Noble (bark) 274 tons
  • USS Peri (bark) 261 tons, missing off Charleston, SC, January 25, 1862.
  • USS Stephen Young (brig) 200 tons
  • USS Timor (ship)
  • Valparaiso (ship) 402 tons
  • USS William Lee (ship), 311 tons, mentioned in Melville's poem as the Lee, a whaler out of Newport, Rhode Island

References

This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.

  1. ^ Treasures of The Confederate Coast: the "Real Rhett Butler" & Other Revelations, by Dr. E. Lee Spence, (Narwhal Press, Charleston/Miami, 1995), pp. 142-152, 159-164

Bibliography

  • Treasures of the Confederate Coast: the "real Rhett Butler" & Other Revelations by Dr. E. Lee Spence, (Narwhal Press, Charleston/Miami, 1995)ISBN 1886391017 ISBN 1886391009, OCLC: 32431590
  • Shipwreck Encyclopedia of the Civil War: South Carolina & Georgia, 1861-1865 by Edward Lee Spence (Sullivan's Island, S.C., Shipwreck Press, 1991) OCLC: 24420089
  • Shipwrecks of South Carolina and Georgia : (includes Spence's List, 1520-1865) by E. Lee Spence, Sullivan's Island, S.C. (Sullivan's Island 29482, Sea Research Society, 1984) OCLC 10593079
  • Shipwrecks, Pirates & Privateers: Sunken Treasures of the Upper South Carolina Coast, 1521-1865 by E. Lee Spence, (Narwhal Press, Charleston/Miami, 1995) ISBN 1-886391-07-6

External links
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