Combat· American Civil War
Stono Raid
A small destructive raid in the waters around besieged Charleston.
In December 1863 a landing party of Marines and sailors from the gunboat USS Marblehead went up the Stono River in South Carolina and struck at a Confederate position there, capturing and destroying the stores and works the enemy had gathered. It was one of the many minor operations by which the blockading squadron kept up pressure on the Charleston defenses and their supply lines through the long siege, the gunboats pushing into the rivers and creeks to break up whatever the Confederates tried to establish along the banks. The raid met little resistance and cost no casualties. Such actions did no decisive damage on their own, but in the aggregate they harassed the enemy, denied him the use of the inland waters, and wore at the logistics of the most stubbornly defended city in the Confederacy.
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Record no. 422