Stono River Expedition in South Carolina - Union Navy Supports Army Demonstration in Front of Charleston - Failure of Attack on Fort Johnson - Fort Sumpter [sic] Pummeled by Federal Batteries - Union Flotilla Covers Withdrawal of the Army

USS Lehigh in the Stono River, 1864.  Image taken from Konstam A, Union Monitor 1861 - 65.

A large scale assault was conducted 2 - 10 July 1864 by Federal forces in the Department of the South at several points southwest of Charleston, South Carolina.  The operation has just concluded without significant results.  Federal infantry to the number of 5,000 troops under the command of Major-General John Foster failed to cut the rail line from Savannah to Charleston.  Union Brigadier-General Alexander Schimmelfennig demonstrated on James Island with another 1,000 soldiers, supported by Rear-Admiral John Dahlgren's flotilla along the Stono River. Although the main effort was directed against the railroad, it was also rumored that the Confederate Navy had planned to sortie with its ironclad rams against the blockade of Charleston Harbor.  Our sources revealed that the Federal offensive was conducted as a preemptive strike, in part to counter this impending threat to the blockaders; however, the rumored Rebel attack on the fleet proved illusory.

General Foster's diversionary assault got underway at dawn on 2 July.  General Schimmelfennig landed at Legareville on the eastern end of James Island with Colonel Alfred Hartwell in immediate command of the demonstrating force.  These troops included the 54th and 55th Massachusetts, the former regiment of Fort Wagner fame (the battle having been fought almost a year ago on Morris Island [18 July 1863]), the 103rd NewYork, and the 33rd USCT.  This force assaulted the Rebel works in two columns, with the gunboats protecting the left flank of the infantry.  The attackers were following along nearly the same route the British took on their way to capturing Charleston in 1780.  Hartwell's soldiers were supported by Union ships shelling the Rebel works on both sides of the narrow Stono River, each projectile throwing up great clods of earth.  The flotilla consisted of the monitors USS Lehigh and USS Montauk, gunboats USS Pawnee and USS McDonough, along with the mortar schooners USS Para and USS Racer.  The flotilla was preceded by USS Dai Ching, sweeping the Stono Inlet for torpedoes.

Schimmelfennig's troops gallantly carried a portion of the Rebel line, but stiff Rebel resistance and the intense heat combined to impede further advance. The temperature reached 110 degrees on the afternoon of 2 July as recorded in the ship's log of the Lehigh.  Ashore the extreme heat felled more soldiers than Rebel bullets with over 50 men in the 54th regiment alone suffering heat prostration. Captain Jones, while directing the Federal skirmish line, was overcome by sunstroke and had to be borne to the rear on a stretcher, raving in delirium.

The Federal diversion managed to achieve one intended aim as the Confederates shifted troops and guns to the besieged works on James Island, leaving Battery Simkins and Fort Johnson in a weakened condition. Consequently a night assault on those works was planned for 3 July.  Twenty open boats carrying 500 men under the command of Colonel Henry Holt [i.e., Hoyt] got underway.  Federal planning apparently failed to account for the receding tide, which caused innumerable delays as the boats approaching the forts through salt marshes continually grounded on the mud flats.  As night became day, the Union soldiers finally landed some fifty yards from Fort Johnson.  The enemy fired just one volley when some unknown Federal officer evidently panicked and gave the order to retreat. Fortunately, when the enemy opened up with their heavy artillery and musketry, the defenders generally fired high as the boats were so close to shore the Rebels could not depress their pieces far enough to hit the attackers.  Inexplicably, only three of the boats had landed with the result that about 140 Union soldiers, including their commander, were soon captured as the other boats pulled away.  It is believed that their were only 150 Confederates at that time defending Fort Johnson.

Likewise the attempt to cut the Charleston and Savanna Railroad ended in abject failure.  The whole operation got off to a sluggish start and bogged down completely in the swamps of the North Edisto River.  The only thing that prevented this affair from becoming a complete disaster was the minimal number of casualties suffered by General Foster's army.

Meanwhile Federal batteries on Morris Island intensified their bombardment of Fort Sumpter [sic] on 7 July.  New breaches in the walls of the fort became visible as the artillery began to methodically destroy this defiant symbol of the Rebellion.  On 10 July a second futile attempt by the Federals to take Fort Johnson was handily repulsed by the Rebels.

Operations on the Stono having concluded with mixed results, Dahlgren's vessels ably covered the withdrawal of the Army from James Island.  General Schimmelfennig sent a highly complimentary letter to Admiral Dahlgren on 9 July praising the conduct of the flotilla.  An excerpt from the missive follows:

"I take pleasure in informing you of the excellent practice by your gunboats and monitors on Stono River yesterday.  They drove the enemy out of his rifle pits and prevented him from erecting an earthwork which he had commenced.  As I shall probably have to occupy that line again before long, this fire of your monitors will undoubtedly save many lives on our side, for which I desire to express to them my thanks."

The fire of the Rebel forts on James island was also quite accurate, as the numerous dents on the iron turret of the Lehigh well attest.  One well-aimed shot fired by the enemy took the leg off a sailor and wounded another onboard the Montauk, the flotilla's only casualties.

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(Editor's note:  General Schimmelfennig came to the United States in 1853 after formerly serving as an engineer officer in the Prussian Army.   He promptly offered his services to the Union when the Civil War began, serving in the XIth Corps, Army of the Potomac, before requesting a transfer to South Carolina. He is probably best remembered as the general officer who spent two days hiding in a pigsty to avoid capture by the Confederates at Gettysburg.  For further study, see Browning RM, Success Is All That Was Expected: The South Atlantic Blockading Squadron During the Civil War;  Scharf JT, History of the Confederate States Navy; and Warner EJ, Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders.)