Stone Fleet an Act of Vindictive Vandalism

[5fish]

WE all know about the Stone Fleet but did you know the world was outrage by the act. Herman Melville wrote a poem about it and they have the list of whaling ships used to do the deed. Think about war now... The link has the poem and more...

The Stone Fleet

The Stone Fleet. An Old Sailor’s Lament by Herman Melville I have a feeling for those ships,Each worn and ancient one,With great bluff bows, and broad in the beam;Ay, it was unkindly done.But…

historicaldigression.com

This was well before the days of the concept of “total war.” The notion of destroying, perhaps forever, the navigability of a major port was seen as a barbarous act at this time…something beyond the rules of “civilized” warfare. British diplomats would rail at this action, requiring Secretary of State Seward to do some agile tap-dancing to avoid increased hostility, stating that there were no plans to do such a thing again. French diplomats would call it, “vindictive vandalism,” while Prussian officials would condemn it as “a crime and outrage to civilization.”

Predicting this reaction, Captain Charles Davis did not relish his task. But he went about it methodically and professionally nonetheless. By the time the fleet reached him outside Charleston Harbor, they were nearly ready to sink on their own, having suffered a long, difficult voyage from New Bedford.

A correspondent from the New York Times described the scene as the plugs were knocked out and the vessels sunk one by one:

"Who could help feeling melancholy at the reflection that the poor old vessels, which had traversed so many thousands of miles of ocean…through long years of dreary, tedious whaling voyages, were to be relentlessly destroyed? How venerable the doomed things now appeared! Short, broad, square-sterned, bluff-bowed…Queer old tubs, with queer fittings up, and quaint names set in elaborate beds of quale-carved work. Yet many of these fossil vessels were celebrated in their time…But away with sentiment. The old vessels are to be destroyed in the performance of a patriotic duty, and even when they are gone, their usefulness survives."

Here is a link to Harpers Weekly describing the sinking of Stone Fleet of ships in Charleston harbor in romantic term sometimes... its worth a read...

Sinking the Stone Fleet in Charleston Harbor

This Civil War newspaper describes the sinking of the stone fleet in Charleston Harbor

www.sonofthesouth.net

At half past four this afternoon (December 19), the tide being nearly full, we recrossed the bar and ran a hawser to the bark Theodosia, of New London, which was to be the first victim, and towed her across the bar to the upper boat, on the left-hand side of the channel. When we had her in a good position, Captain Stevens, through a speaking-trumpet, ordered the captain to "cast off the hawser."

Here wiki with the name of the whaling ships sunk...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Fleet

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

 

[5fish]

I want to point out the Stone fleet did not work...


A second channel leading into Charleston was blocked by another Stone Fleet in January 1862, this one consisting of 20 old whalers. Although all went according to plan with both fleets, the effort sadly turned out to be pointless. The harbor was blocked for a time, but the ocean is simply too mighty to be long deterred by some old wooden hulks. The Stone Fleets were soon pulverized by the tide, their timbers washed up on the shores of Charleston and were used for firewood.

The pointlessness of it caused Herman Melville to write the Old Sailor’s Lament above. “Currents will have their way…A failure and complete was your Stone Fleet.”

 

[5fish]

Here a link to images of the stone fleet and their captains and the captain names...

https://www.theday.com/article/20111211/NWS08/312119915

 

[5fish]

You will find Connecticut was a ship building hub in the civil war...

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/hc-civil-war-stone-fleet-1206-20111210-story.html


In 1861, Mystic had three major shipbuilders and several smaller one. It emerged as a leading center for wartime naval construction. Its 50,000 tons of ships surpassed every other Union port except Boston, which was 20 times larger.

"The Civil War era was the peak of Mystic's long ship-building history. Most of the ships built at Mystic were for troop and supply transport, but several were built and fitted for combat, and a few actually engaged in battle,'' according to an unpublished paper by Brian Stanley, a graduate student in history at Central Connecticut State University.

Here another link about Connecticut ship building efforts in the civil war... There a story about Farragut on the Mississippi river...

Connecticut’s Naval Contributions to the Civil War - Connecticut History | a CTHumanities Project

Companies across Connecticut helped keep the Union navy afloat while sea-savvy leaders and sailors from the state kept it in fighting form.

connecticuthistory.org

Before the war, Mystic, with a population of just 2,500, was famous for building fast clipper ships and other sailing vessels but quickly converted to building steamships once war broke out. In fact, in response to war demands, more steam vessels were built at Mystic between 1861 and 1865 than at any other New England port. “All our shipyards are hard at work. Whatever the effect of the war in other places, we believe it will prove a benefit to Mystic,” wrote the editor of the Mystic Pioneer newspaper on May 18, 1861. And, so it was. Mystic shipyards launched 56 steamers during the war, representing 5% of Northern steamship construction.

 

[jgoodguy]

Somehow I find the outage by the Prussians ironic.
Lee seems to prefer killing people on the battlefield to less deadly actions.,

 

[rittmeister]

WE all know about the Stone Fleet

bah, humbug - i had never heard of that

 

[jgoodguy]

bah, humbug - i had never heard of that

Nor had I.

Why write a poem about ships headed for the breakers anyway.

 

[rittmeister]

Nor had I.

Why write a poem about ships headed for the breakers anyway.

if your name's melville you do, if your name's weinzapf you don't

 

[rittmeister]

Somehow I find the outage by the Prussians ironic.

why?

Lee seems to prefer killing people on the battlefield to less deadly actions.,

he's a gentleman - bashing in heads is way more preferable than littering the harbour

 

[5fish]

Here another look at the stone fleet...

Civil War’s ‘Stone Fleet’ Sailed From New London To Dubious End In South Carolina

In November 1861, New London residents watched with curiosity as teams of oxen hauled wagons loaded with fieldstones through their streets. The stones had been collected from the foundations of far…

www.courant.com

Sunken Whalers

A directive from Welles in October 1861 set in motion preparations for the Stone Fleet.

A New London businessman, 35-year-old Richard H. Chappell, was charged with finding and outfitting the needed vessels.

Chappell had made his mark in New London's whaling industry. Ambitious and resourceful, he had expanded the reach of his firm to include seal hunting in Alaska and the Antarctic and guano collection in the Pacific.

Working with agents in New Bedford and Boston, Chappell scoured the New England coastline for ships. In just a few weeks time, 45 vessels, mostly old whalers, were acquired from New York City and various New England ports, with 11 of them coming from New London and others from Mystic.

Ships from the initial stone fleet were sunk off Charleston on Dec. 20, 1861 provoking an immediate outcry from the press in South Carolina and across the Atlantic.

"Shall We Have War With England?" headlined a Hartford Daily Courant editorial on Jan. 3, 1862. The editorialist argued that Great Britain viewed the American rebellion as an opportunity to weaken a growing commercial power and would seize upon "any pretext" to tweak the U.S.: "the hostile English press itself is already protesting against such a mode of blockade as injurious to the rights of nations."

The second stone fleet sailed December 11. Vessels were sunk off Charleston and Tybee Island, at the mouth of the Savannah River, in early 1862. By then, reports had emerged that that this novel effort to impede Southern blockade-running had achieved, at best, mixed results.

As the Courant informed readers on February 15, 1862:

"The Sea Ranger which accompanied the stone fleet to Charleston has returned to New London. The Chronicle says the captain brings a report which will somewhat astonish all of us who have fancied that the stone fleet had closed up from navigation the inlets where the hulks have been sunk.

"The enterprise is pronounced so far a failure that it is still quite an easy matter to sail or steam into or out of the passage in which the stone vessels are placed! They are sunk so far apart that it is easy to steer between them, and some of them lie in such deep soundings that there are six or eight fathoms of water between their rails and the surface."

Herman Melville, the great chronicler of the whaling era, mourned what he viewed as a wasteful failure in his poem, "The Stone Fleet." Here are the final stanzas:

 

[O' Be Joyful]

bah, humbug - i had never heard of that

Nor had I.

I have, originally from one or more of the Civil War magazines that I used to subscribe to, though Naval aspects of "The War 'Tween the States" were rare as hen's teeth. Perhaps as one particularly obnoxious/veiled insult heavy a-hole--@uaskme--always put(s) it "over there" in Pop-corn land, "You should study more."

The naval officer in command of the operation was 54 year-old Captain Charles Henry Davis of Boston. Davis would go on to become perhaps the most accomplished naval officer from Massachusetts during the Civil War, responsible for the Union victory during the Battle of Memphis (while in command of a river flotilla) on June 6, 1862. By 1863, he would be promoted to Rear Admiral. He did not, however, regard the sinking of the Stone Fleet as one of his more glorious moments.


“This is a disagreeable duty,” Davis wrote his wife, “and one of the last I should have selected…The pet idea of Mr. Fox has been to stop up some of the southern harbors. I had always a special disgust for this business…I always considered this mode of interrupting commerce as liable to great objection and doubtful success.”

This was well before the days of the concept of “total war.” The notion of destroying, perhaps forever, the navigability of a major port was seen as a barbarous act at this time…something beyond the rules of “civilized” warfare. British diplomats would rail at this action, requiring Secretary of State Seward to do some agile tap-dancing to avoid increased hostility, stating that there were no plans to do such a thing again. French diplomats would call it, “vindictive vandalism,” while Prussian officials would condemn it as “a crime and outrage to civilization.”

The Stone Fleet

The Stone Fleet. An Old Sailor’s Lament by Herman Melville I have a feeling for those ships,Each worn and ancient one,With great bluff bows, and broad in the beam;Ay, it was unkindly done.But…

historicaldigression.com