The Battle of Tulifinny was a military engagement of the American Civil War that was fought from December 6–9, 1864 in Jasper County, South Carolina during Sherman's March to the Sea. Outnumbered five-to-one, a Confederate force led by Major-General Samuel Jones, consisting in part of the entire cadet corps of the South Carolina Military Academy, successfully defended a strategically important section of the Charleston and Savannah Railway from attacks by Union forces. The engagement was one of the rare occasions when the United States Marine Corps fought in combat during the conflict.
In early December 1864, Major General William Tecumseh Sherman and his formidable army numbering an estimated 62,000 men approached the South Carolina border and their final objective of Savannah, Georgia. Sherman had ordered his men to apply "scorched earth" tactics which resulted in the burning of crops and homes, confiscation and killing of livestock and the consumption of any supplies available for his army. This total war strategy, though brutal was believed to cause mass desertion among Confederate troops and break the South's will to fight.
Tulifinny was one of eight engagements in which cadets from the South Carolina Military Academy (SCMA; also known as the Battalion of State Cadets) participated. The amphibious landing on the Tulifinny River conducted primarily by the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps was successful in moving 5,000 troops to Gregorie Point (also known as Deveaux's Neck) which is a peninsula bounded by the Tulifinny and Coosawatchie Rivers located near the town of Yemassee and some 45 miles north of Savannah. Much of the peninsula was covered with swamps, thick foliage and large trees. General Francis Marion, "The Swamp Fox" of American Revolutionary War fame fought the British and encamped near the Tulifinny on several occasions. The Union objective was to cut the Charleston–Savannah rail line by destroying a railroad trestle that crossed the Tulifinny River.
Brigadier General John Porter Hatch (Medal of Honor recipient);
102nd United States Colored Infantry Regiment, 34th U.S. Colored Troops
Commander George Henry Preble, Naval Support Brigade Ashore
First Lieutenant (Acting Lieutenant Colonel) George G. Stoddard, Commanding
==== Provisional Army of the Confederate States ====
3rd Military District of South Carolina - Major General Samuel Jones, Commanding; Brigadier General Lucius J. Gartrell; Brigadier General James Chesnut; Brigadier General Beverly Robertson
"Every Cadet acted with conspicuous gallantry and showed that the discipline of his Academy had made him a thorough soldier for the battlefield. The privations of the succeeding months proved him as well prepared for the hardships of the march and the camp."
The American Civil War (1861–1865) was the deadliest conflict in American history, killing an estimated 620,000 to 750,000 soldiers and an unknown number of civilians. The Confederate States of America, formed by eleven seceding Southern states, faced the Union in four years of warfare across 23 states and territories. Major engagements included First and Second Bull Run, Antietam (the bloodiest single day in American history, September 17, 1862), Chancellorsville, Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863), Vicksburg (surrendered July 4, 1863), and Sherman's March through Georgia and the Carolinas (1864–1865). President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, transforming the war's stated purpose to include the abolition of slavery and enabling the enlistment of approximately 180,000 Black men in the United States Colored Troops. Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. The war resolved the question of secession and ended American slavery, though Reconstruction would face sustained resistance in its attempt to secure civil rights for formerly enslaved people.
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