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A South Carolina Navy has been formed twice by the State of South Carolina. The first time was during the American Revolutionary War, in which the state purchased and outfitted armed vessels independent of the Continental Navy. The second time was during the American Civil War, when its navy was also distinct from the Confederate States Navy.
South Carolina's first naval actions of the American Revolutionary War occurred in July 1775, when the province's Council of Safety hired two captains to assist Georgia in the capture of British ships carrying arms and gunpowder. [1] That month the council also hired a ship, Commerce, for the purpose of acquiring gunpowder that the British had stored at Nassau in the Bahamas. She was outfitted for this purpose, but word of the anticipated arrival of British ships carrying arms and gunpowder at Savannah, Georgia prompted her to be used to capture those ships instead. These activities netted the colonial cause more than 25,000 pounds of gunpowder. [2] In October 1775, the council acquired the schooner Defence, and hired Simon Tufts as her captain. After she had a brief exchange with British ships in Charleston harbor in November, the provincial congress voted to seize Prosper to assist in driving the British ships away, and established a commission to oversee naval affairs. [3]
In December, a third ship, Comet, was added to the fleet, and the council sent Robert Cochran to recruit experienced seamen in Massachusetts. As Boston was at the time under siege by George Washington's newly formed Continental Army, Massachusetts authorized him to recruit up to 300 men, provided he offered moderate wages so as to not compete with local needs.
The provincial congress in early 1776 authorized committees in other provincial ports to acquire ships and men for local defense, and fixed pay scales and ranks for state land and naval forces. In March 1776 the schooner Peggy entered the state service. In the following months the congress, now operating under a new constitution, passed laws establishing admiralty courts and providing for the appointment of ship captains. Captains were to be chosen by the legislature, with commissions issued by the state president. On October 8 the legislature established a Board of Naval Commissioners to oversee the state's naval affairs, including the purchase, outfitting, and manning of ships, and the management of its shipyards. This organizational structure survived until February 1780, when the state legislature repealed all previously-established laws respecting the naval establishment.
Throughout 1777 and 1778 the state acquired property for shipyards, and brought more ships into service. This included the Paul Pritchard Shipyard at Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. [4] This activity picked up pace when the British captured Savannah late in 1778, bringing the war closer to the state. When it became clear the British were going to make a second attempt on Charleston in 1780, the state procured additional ships, and the naval defense of Charleston was passed to Continental Navy captain Abraham Whipple. Most of the state's ships were lost during the Siege of Charleston, and only a few small ships were commissioned after the tide of battle turned against the British in 1781. One ship that survived the loss of Charleston was the frigate South Carolina, which was at sea at the time.
Commodore Alexander Gillon had procured South Carolina in Europe, the state having ordered her in March 1778. [5] Previously named Indien, she was chartered from the Chevalier de Luxembourg for a three-year period. The charter agreement provided that prize money was to be divided between the officers and crew (½), South Carolina (¼), and the Chevalier Luxembourg (¼). On her way from Europe to South Carolina she captured several prizes, and she participated in the 1782 capturing of the Bahamas with the Spanish fleet. She was captured in December 1782, and the financial terms Gillon agreed to concerning prize distribution and indemnification of the Chevalier de Luxembourg for its loss bedeviled the state's finances for years.
Additionally, the Navy included frigates, Rattlesnake, Bricole, and Truite (26), the brigs Notre Dame (16), and Comet; also General Moultrie (20). Bricole, Truite, Notre Dame and General Moultrie all participated in the defense of Charleston in early 1780.
Bricole was a flûte built by Jean-Joseph Ginoux and launched around April 19, 1764. In September 1779 she sank in the Savannah River but was refloated. The next month the French ceded her to the South Carolina government. The South Carolinians wanted to convert her to a frigate of 44 guns, but then gave up the idea and made her a floating battery instead. As such she was armed with fourteen 12-pounder guns on her lower deck and twenty-two 8-pounder guns on her upper deck. In March 1780 she was sunk in front of Charleston, South Carolina to impede the entry of British naval vessels. [6]
Truite was a French vessel built to plans by Jean-Joseph Ginoux and built and launched at Le Havre on May 9, 1777. The French transferred her to the South Carolina Navy in December 1779. By March 1780 she was a frigate of 26 guns. She was sunk in the Copper River to prevent a British squadron from sailing up the river. [7]
in 1861 South Carolina Navy Posed, little gunboat which served as the flagship of Commodore Josiah Tattnall III's Savannah Defense Squadron accompanied by a squadron consisting of CSS Lady Davis CSS Savannah, CSS Sampson and CSS Resolute.
On May 11, 1862, in the face of advancing Federal forces, Flag Officer Tattnall ordered the destruction of his flagship, CSS Virginia (ex-Merrimack). He was later acquitted by a court martial of all charges stemming from that action. He resumed command of the naval forces of Georgia on May 29, 1862, and retained it until 31 March 1863, when he turned over command of forces afloat to Comdr. Richard L. Page and concentrated upon the shore defenses of Savannah. When Savannah fell to General William Tecumseh Sherman's troops, Tattnall became a prisoner of war.
He was paroled on May 9, 1865, and, soon thereafter, took up residence once more in Savannah.
After the American Civil War, states maintained both army and naval militias. During the Spanish–American War, the South Carolina Naval Militia was federalized and deployed aboard several United States Navy vessels. [8] In 2003, the state of South Carolina reactivated the naval militia under the South Carolina Maritime Security Act. [9]
The second USS Boston was a 24-gun frigate, launched 3 June 1776 by Stephen and Ralph Cross, Newburyport, Massachusetts, and completed the following year. In American service she captured a number of British vessels. The British captured Boston at the fall of Charleston, South Carolina, renamed her HMS Charlestown, and took her into service. She was engaged in one major fight with two French frigates, which she survived and which saved the convoy she was protecting. The British sold Charlestown in 1783, immediately after the end of the war.
USS Delaware was a 24-gun sailing frigate of the United States Navy that had a short career in the American Revolutionary War as the British Royal Navy captured her in 1777. The Royal Navy took her in as an "armed ship", and later classed her a sixth rate. The Royal Navy sold her in 1783. British owners named her United States and then French interests purchased her and named her Dauphin. She spent some years as a whaler and then in March 1795 she was converted at Charleston, South Carolina, to French privateer. Her subsequent fate is unclear.
Atlanta was a casemate ironclad that served in the Confederate and Union Navies during the American Civil War. She was converted from a British-built blockade runner named Fingal by the Confederacy after she made one run to Savannah, Georgia. After several failed attempts to attack Union blockaders, the ship was captured by two Union monitors in 1863 when she ran aground. Atlanta was floated off, repaired, and rearmed, serving in the Union Navy for the rest of the war. She spent most of her time deployed on the James River supporting Union forces there. The ship was decommissioned in 1865 and placed in reserve. Several years after the end of the war, Atlanta was sold to Haiti, but was lost at sea in December 1869 on her delivery voyage.
Commodore Josiah Tattnall was a United States Navy officer during the War of 1812, the Second Barbary War and the Mexican–American War. He later served in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War.
John Newland Maffitt was an officer in the Confederate States Navy who was nicknamed the "Prince of Privateers" due to his success as a blockade runner and commerce raider in the U.S. Civil War.
Indien, often L'Indien, was a frigate built for the U.S. Commissioners in France – Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and Arthur Lee – to a design by the French naval architect Jacques Boux. She was laid down early in 1777 by a private shipyard in Amsterdam and launched in February 1778. Apparently she was built with the scantlings and lines of a small 74-gun Third Rate ship of the line but was a frigate in construction. In 1780 the Duke of Luxembourg chartered her to the navy of South Carolina and she sailed as South Carolina.
CSSResolute was a tugboat built in 1858 at Savannah Georgia as the Ajax which served in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War.
CSSLady Davis was a gunboat in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War.
CSS Savannah, later called Old Savannah and Oconee, was a gunboat in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War.
The siege of Fort Pulaski concluded with the battle of Fort Pulaski fought April 10–11, 1862, during the American Civil War. Union forces on Tybee Island and naval operations conducted a 112-day siege, then captured the Confederate-held Fort Pulaski after a 30-hour bombardment. The siege and battle are important for innovative use of rifled guns which made existing coastal defenses obsolete. The Union initiated large-scale amphibious operations under fire.
The southern theater of the American Revolutionary War was the central theater of military operations in the second half of the American Revolutionary War, 1778–1781. It encompassed engagements primarily in Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Tactics consisted of both strategic battles and guerrilla warfare.
A Virginia State Navy existed twice. During the American Revolutionary War, the provisional government of the Virginia Colony authorized the purchase, outfitting, and manning of armed vessels to protect the colony's waters from threats posed it by the Royal Navy.
The Massachusetts Naval Militia, was a naval militia active during the American Revolutionary War. It was founded December 29, 1775, to defend the interests of Massachusetts during the war.
HMS Ariel was a 20-gun Sphinx-class sixth-rate post ship of the Royal Navy. The French captured her in 1779, and she served during the American Revolutionary War for them, and later for the Americans, before reverting to French control. Her French crew scuttled Ariel in 1793 to prevent the British from recapturing her.
American colonial marines were various naval infantry units which served during the Revolutionary War on the Patriot side. After the conflict broke out in 1775, nine of the rebelling Thirteen Colonies established state navies to carry out naval operations. Accordingly, several marine units were raised to serve as an infantry component aboard the ships of these navies. The marines, along with the navies they served in, were intended initially as a stopgap measure to provide the Patriots with naval capabilities before the Continental Navy reached a significant level of strength. After its establishment, state navies, and the marines serving in them, participated in several operations alongside the Continental Navy and its marines.
The Rhode Island State Navy was the first colonial or state navy established after the American Revolutionary War began in April 1775 with the Battles of Lexington and Concord. On the following June 15, the General Assembly authorized the acquisition of two ships for the purpose of defending the colony's trade. The state's ships were generally used for defensive operations within Narragansett Bay, although some prizes were taken. The state was also one of the first to authorize privateering.
During the American Revolutionary War, the Georgia State Navy consisted of only a few ships, most of which were destroyed in 1778 and 1779.
HM galley Comet was the South Carolina Navy's brigantine Comet, which the government of South Carolina purchased in 1775. The British Royal Navy captured her in 1777. She grounded and was destroyed in 1780.
Oliver Cromwell was the largest ship in the Connecticut State Navy from her launch on 13 June 1776 until British ships captured her in a battle off the coast of Sandy Hook, New Jersey, on 6 June 1779. The British renamed her Restoration. She was purchased by the Royal Navy in North America in 1779, and named HMS Loyalist. In May 1781 her captain was Morgan Laugharne.
CSS Sampson, sometimes spelled Samson, was employed as a tugboat, prior to her purchase by the Confederate Government in 1861.
paullin massachusetts navy.This work contains summary information on each of the various state navies.
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