Combat· American Civil War
Georgetown, SC occupied
A bloodless occupation among the closing Marine operations of the war on the Atlantic coast.
With Charleston fallen and the Union sweeping up the South Carolina seaboard in the wake of Sherman's advance, six companies of Marines under Lieutenant George Stoddard, the same officer who had led them through the swamp fighting at Honey Hill and Tullifinney, went ashore in February 1865 to occupy Georgetown, South Carolina. The Confederates had abandoned the place, and the occupation met no resistance. No casualties resulted. It was a quiet end to the hard service of Stoddard's battalion, which had borne the brunt of the Marine ground fighting in the final coastal campaign. The taking of Georgetown was one of the last acts of the South Atlantic squadron's Marines before the collapse of the Confederacy, the occupation of a port the enemy no longer had the strength to hold.
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Record no. 431