Battle of Port Royal

On the morning of November 7, 1861, Du Pont's flagship, the Wabash, led the Union fleet into action at Port Royal Sound as Confederate batteries at Forts Walker and Beauregard opened fire. After testing the enemy's capabilities the day before, Du Pont concentrated most of his fire on the more heavily armed Fort Walker. For several hours Union warships dueled the Confederate forts, and shells ripped through Fort Walker, dismounting guns and killing or wounding some of the garrison, while the Confederate guns, though valiantly served, did little harm to the constantly moving ships. At the outset of the Civil War, Federal strategists saw a naval blockade of southern ports as crucial to stopping the influx of foreign supplies and slowing the export of goods that funded the South, and Port Royal Sound, between Savannah and Charleston, offered an excellent base for that blockade. To defend the sound, Confederates built two large earthen forts at its entrance, Fort Walker on Hilton Head Island and Fort Beauregard on Bay Point, together mounting nearly 50 guns. On October 29, 1861, the largest fleet yet assembled by the United States, under Flag Officer Samuel F. Du Pont, sailed from Hampton Roads, Virginia, with nearly 13,000 soldiers and Marines accompanying 17 warships, 25 coaling schooners, and 33 transports, though their destination was secret. A tremendous gale off Cape Hatteras three days later scattered the fleet and four ships were lost, but sealed orders allowed each vessel to make for a rendezvous off Port Royal Sound, where most of the squadron had arrived by November 3. As the Union fleet assembled, four Confederate vessels commanded by Josiah Tattnall challenged it for two days while Du Pont positioned his ships against General Thomas Drayton's coastal fortifications. Du Pont divided his warships into two parallel squadrons that would sail between the forts; once past the defenses, one column would guard against Confederate gunboats while the other circled back in an elliptical maneuver to bombard the forts into submission. In this war of divided loyalties, Thomas Drayton's younger brother, Percival Drayton, commanded the Pocahontas and fired more than 70 rounds in one hour at his brother's troops on shore. Southern resistance lasted until mid afternoon, when ammunition ran low, little damage had been inflicted on the attacking fleet, many guns had been dismounted, and the forts faced the danger of entrapment, so Forts Walker and Beauregard were abandoned and the defenders retreated inland. Port Royal Sound was secured by the Union, and for the rest of the war the area served as headquarters for the army's Department of the South and the navy's South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, which patrolled the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, and east Florida.

Port Royal, South Carolina · United States