U.S. #10 Boat Flag of the Yankee Gunboat Isaac P. Smith
Retained by Captain Francis Huger Harleston
Co. D, 1st South Carolina Light Artillery
January 30, 1863
Note: There are a couple of superlatives about this historic event:
A linen bag, brown with age and with the inked inscription “F. Harleston” has an old tag sewn onto its front containing the following handwritten inscription in brown ink:
U.S. Flag
A Trophy
Taken from the Yankee Gunboat
Isaac P. Smith
Captured in Stono Bay – By
F.H. Harleston
The Soldier in Our Civil War, Vol. I, Page 189; courtesy U.S. Naval Historical Center, Washington, D.C.
U.S.S. Isaac P. Smith
The U.S.S. Isaac P. Smith was built in 1851 at Nyack, NJ. She was purchased by the Navy in September, 1861 and was assigned to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron in time to join Flag Officer S. F. du Pont’s assault against Port Royal, S.C. Her most significant action was a reconnaissance in force on November 4-5, 1861, when she engaged and repelled three attacking Confederate steamers and silenced batteries at Hilton Head and Bay Point, SC. She participated in operations against the coast of South Carolina, Savannah and as far south as Fernandina and St. Augustine, Florida. At St. Augustine, her boats captured the blockade runner British Empire on April 3, 1862. Returning to South Carolina in October, 1862, after necessary repairs and improvements in New York, she was ordered to the Stono River where she served until January 30, 1863.
The Isaac P. Smith was an iron screw steamer of 453 tons, carried eight 8-inch guns (sixty-four pounders) and a 7-inch thirty-pounder Parrott gun. Her crew consisted of eleven officers and 105 men, commanded by Captain F. S. Conover. At some point the crew of the vessel became bored with patrols along the Stono River. They drew a crude figure of a Confederate soldier and placed it on John’s Island to use for pistol practice. Nearby confederates became enraged at seeing the improvised target and planned a response. Under the cover of darkness, the Confederates managed to haul at least four guns close to the bank of the river. Major Charles Alston concealed his battery under a huge live oak tree and waited for the gunboat to pass that point in its patrol of the Stono early on January 30, 1863. When the boat reached the masked battery, the Confederates opened fire upon the Federal vessel. Return fire raked the hidden position as the vessel increased speed to flee from their aggressors.
The Confederate battery managed three hits to the Smith’s boilers, disabling the ship. Reportedly suffering 23 men killed and wounded, Conover surrendered the ship to the land batteries, which soon put a prize crew on board. The Federal vessel U.S.S. Commodore McDonough tried in vain to come to the aid of the Smith, but the Confederate batteries opened fire upon that ship, and it dropped back down the river.
The captured gunboat was towed by a tug up the river, and it later reached the city of Charleston. It was placed into Confederate service as the C.S.S. Stono with Lt. W.G. Dozier, CSN, in command. She later was loaded with cotton and attempted to run the blockade on June 6, 1863, but was wrecked on the breakwater near Fort Moultrie, S.C.
The action on January 30, 1863, was according to one account the only time during the Civil War where a Union warship surrendered to land-based batteries. One Union sailor, Richard Stout, won the Navy Medal of Honor for conspicuous action unsuccessfully defending the ship during the battle that day. Stout was severely wounded and lost his right arm in the battle.
Captain Francis Huger Harleston
Francis Huger Harleston (1838-1863) was one of South Carolina’s native sons, a member of the Citadel’s Class of 1860. He received his appointment as First Lieutenant in the First Regiment South Carolina Regular Artillery. In January, 1862, he was promoted Captain of Company D, and assigned to duty at Fort Sumter, a post that he would defend for most of his short career. Harleston was the subject of a short sketch in Ron Coddington’s recent book Faces of the Confederacy. Harleston was mortally wounded by a heavy artillery shell while inspecting damage to obstructions outside of the Fort walls on November 24, 1863. Buried in the churchyard at Stansberry, he was memorialized on a mural tablet at the Citadel.
The Flag
During the Civil War the navigator’s department authorized 14 different size flags for use aboard ship. Numbers 1-9 were ship ensigns. No. 1, the largest was 19 feet on the hoist and 36 feet on the fly and No. 9 was 6.33 x 12 feet. Flag numbers 10-14 were designated “boat ensigns.” No. 10 was 5.28 feet on the hoist and 10 feet on the fly. No. 14 was the smallest and it was 2.5 feet on the hoist and 5 feet on the fly. The length of the union was 40% to 50% of the length of the flag on the fly. The No. 10 would have flown on a large boat. All of the ensigns, including boat flags, were supposed to have the number of stars equal to the number of states in the Union. Clearly the Navy did not adopt this standard; during the 19th Century 16 stars and 13 stars (as this one is) were common.
Price $12,500.00
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