 In 1864, the city was burned to the ground by Union forces in retaliation for the sinking of the tinclad Union gunboat "USS Queen City" by forces under the command of Confederate Brigadier General Joseph O. Shelby.The town's charter was dissolved in 1884, and it was reincorporated in 1898.In the early 1900s, Clarendon developed a number of industries, including lumber, staves and barrels, oars, and buttons made from the shells of the area's plentiful freshwater mussels.