Part of Civil War @ Charleston Website
Written by Max Shaw
When South Carolina fired on Fort Sumter on 12 April 1861, the United States Navy was completely unprepared for the role it would play in the subsequent war with the Rebellion States. Nevertheless, within seven months the Navy in joint operations with the U.S. Coastal Survey and the Army secured a foothold in South Carolina at Port Royal. After the smarting defeats at Bull Run VA in July, WilsonÕs Creek MO in August and BallsÕ Bluff VA in October, the November expedition to the South Carolina coast was the greatest and most significant blow to restore the Union in 1861.
Three days after the surrender of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln proclaimed a blockade of all southern ports. In doing so, he was implicitly recognizing the Confederacy since a formal blockade was considered an act of war by International Law. Lincoln had no choice since the European nations had declared that they would not honor a declaration of the closing of southern ports unless ships were present to actually assert Federal control. This presented Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and his Assistant, Gustavus V. Fox with a dilemma. The Navy had only 42 ships in commission and only three were available to actually perform blockade duties on the nearly 3000 miles of southern coastal waters.
The new steam technology presented another problem for the Navy. Unlike the vessels in the age of sail, steam powered ship were not restricted by favorable winds and tides. Thus, blockade runners could leave at their choosing and mandated that the blockade ships maintain a head of steam at all times. This would require coaling stations and maintenance facilities for a flotilla to remain on station to make the blockade effective. At the beginning of the war only Hampton Roads VA and Key West FL were still in Federal hands; too far away to efficiently resupply blockaders of the most important southern ports.
In conjunction with the U. S. Coastal Survey, Assistant Secretary Fox set up a Strategy Board to determine a course of action to solve these problems. The first report of this Board recommended two simultaneous expeditions to seize coaling ports on the Atlantic Coast, recommending Fernandina Florida and one more of ÒmilitaryÓ significance. The second report identified three possible targets along the South Carolina coast: Bulls Bay, north of Charleston; St. Helena Sound, midway between Charleston and Savannah Georgia; and Port Royal Sound, just north of Savannah.
The Navy's representative on the Strategy Board was Flag Officer Samuel F. Du Pont. He recognized the political and military significance of Port Royal over all other potential targets due to the deep water and wide channel necessary for larger ships. But he also recognized that it would be more heavily defended. Two events would settle the issue in his mind. First was the disaster at Ball's Bluff on 22 October, the third defeat of Federal forces in three months. Second, Asst. Sec. Fox personally visited Du Pont and persuaded him that Port Royal should be the target.
Battle for Port Royal
An expedition of 77 vessels with more than 12,000 soldiers embarked departed on 29 October. To date, this was the largest battle fleet the United States had ever assembled and would be a model for future Amphibious Operations in the Pacific 80 years later. On 3 November, 1861 only eight ships arrived off Port Royal. During the transit, the fleet encounter gale winds and seas and was seriously dispersed. Several vessel were sunk or heavily damaged. The Governor was a troop transport with a Battalion of Marines aboard. They were rescued by the crew of Sabine with only seven men lost. Both Union and Ocean Empress carried most of the Army's Artillery to be used to support the Infantry once landed. Other ships never arrived at Port Royal: Belvidere, Osceola, Peerless, Young Rover, and Winfield Scott.
With the expedition ships finally gathered and conditions right for the ships to cross the bar on 7 November, Du PontÕs ordered the signal to "Weigh Anchor." The defenses surrounding Port Royal Sound appeared very formidable at first glance. On the north side at Bay Point on Eddings Island lay Fort Beauregard sporting 13 cannon but only one [six inch Brooks rifle] that could reach across the 2 1/2 mile wide Broad River. On the south side was Fort Walker on Hilton Head Island. Incomplete, boasting of 23 guns [only 16 would be operable during the battle], some of which were of significant caliber, Fort Walker would be the greater threat.
Du Pont's plan would take full advantage of the steam powered vessels at his command. He would pass between the two forts engaging first Fort Beauregard on the north and then turn toward Fort Walker with eight of his heavily armed vessels, together mounting 123 guns. Steaming in an ellipse in the channel, these warships could keep both Forts under continuous fire, while the remaining nine armed vessels would position themselves north of the main action to enfilade undefended north face of Fort Walker and prevent the four small gunboats of the Confederate Navy from doing any harm.
The main body of Du Pont's ships made several passes within 500 yards of the beach in front of Fort Walker. Beverly S. Osborn, a New York Hearld correspondent reported:
"The noise was terrific, while bursting of the shells was terrible as it was destructive. I counted no less than forty shells bursting at one time, and that into the battery and the woods" The noise was in fact so loud that it was heard in Fernandina, Florida, seventy miles to the south.
An officer on the Confederate staff wrote:
"No sooner did we obtain his range when it would be changed and time after time recharged, while the deep water permitted him to choose his own position and fire shot after shot, shell after shell, with the precision of target practice. Most unfortunate for us was the mistake of the engineers which I had pointed out before the battle, of having failed to establish a battery on the Bluff which commanded our flank. The enemy, having taken position in the mouth of the creek, exposed us to a raking fire which did us the greatest damage, dismounting our guns and killing and wounding numbers of our men"
The Captain of the Federal Gunboat Pocahontas was Percival Drayton, brother of the Confederate Commander, General Thomas Fenwick Drayton and his aide, William Seabrook Drayton, a cousin. General Drayton would later remark:
"The fort was enfiladed by two gunboats anchored to the north of the mouth of Fish Haul Creek, and another at a point on the edge of the shoals to the south. This enfilading fire on so still a sea annoyed and damaged us excessively, particularly as we had no gun on either flank of the bastion to reply with, for the 32-pounder on the right flank was shattered very early by a round of shot, and on the north flank, for want of a carriage, no gun had been mounted.''
Fire was so intense that the Confederate flag staff was repeatedly shot away only to be replaced by brave men who exposed themselves to Du Pont's large caliber barrage. Disabled guns, the dead, the wounded, and the dying lay everywhere. The air vibrated with thunderous noise of exploding shells. Sand choked and blinded men trying their best to return fire. By noon only three guns at Fort Walker were still operable and ammunition was running short.
By 2 pm the battle was over with negligible damage to the fleet: 8 men killed and 23 wounded. The Confederates has suffer the greater defeat with 11 killed, 48 wounded and 7 missing. Hundreds of muskets and bayonets, fifteen wagons of commissary captured, and all the fort guns captured or out of commission. Hundreds of canteens, haversacks, knapsacks, cartridge boxes abandoned in their haste to get off the island.
More than 500 surfboats were lowered and 12,653 soldiers in blue were rowed ashore. What they found was ghastly; frightful carnage having been levied on the southern defenders. Dismembered body parts were wide-flung and covered with a film of sand. One gun breach was smeared with the brains of a man who had been about to sight the piece when it was struck by shell fragments. Some of the newly baptized soldiers were filled with a sense of shame when they discovered the body of Dr. E. S. Buist, the Brigade Surgeon. He had been decapitated while bandaging a wounded soldier; a bit bandage still gripped in his dead hand.
Several hours later, when the expected counter- attack did not materialize, the men of the South Carolina Expeditionary Corps went into the fields near the Fort and dug sweet potatoes with their bayonets. As darkness began to fall, they built fires along the shore and prepared for picket duty. And so began the combat experiences of the Washington Grays.
Federal Units: 8th Me, 3rd NH, 46th NY, 47th NY, 48th NY, 8th MI, 79th NY, 50th PA, 100th PA, 6th CN, 7th CN, 9th ME, 4th NH, 3rd RI, 1st NY Eng, Battery E, 3rd US Arty. Total 12,653
Federal Navy: Wabash, Susquehenna, Mohican, Seminole, Pocahontas, Pawnee, Unadilla, Seneca, Ottawa, Pembina, Vandalia, Bienville, Augusta, Curlew, Penguin, R. B. Forbes, and Isaac Smith
Confederate Units: 4th GA, 9th SC, 12th SC, 15th SC, Beaufort Guards, Georgia Battery, 1st SC Arty. Total 1800.
Confederate Navy: Savannah, Resolute, Sampson, and Lady Davis
Max Shaw is the President of the 47th. New York Reenactment Unit in Charleston, SC and a member of the Board of the S.C. Battleground Preservation Trust, Inc. He was an officer in the United States Navy prior to his retierment. Max Shaw can be reached by Email at SCYanky@aol.com