Within a month after the chief Confederate ports on the Atlantic coast had been blockaded, the imperative need of a nearby naval station, where ships could lie in a harbor and make repairs and take on coal, was manifest. To run away north from Charleston and Savannah to Hampton Roads, every time coal was needed, was something that could not be tolerated. For, as the reader will remember, the majority of the steamers of those days could carry no more coal than would last them for a week or ten days under steam. And what was worse, the machinery was always going wrong, even though steam-pressures were so low that steam-chests were known to burst inward on the creation of a sudden vacuum. The capture of Hatteras Inlet, in a small measure supplied this want. Vessels drawing no more than thirteen feet of water could make a harbor there in any but the worst weather. But because the majority of the blockading ships drew much more than this, the government was compelled to provide a deeper port. Fortunately, “a harbor sufficient to contain the largest fleet in the world” lay right where it was needed. It was a little-known harbor, in those days, even among shipping merchants, for no great town overlooked its waters, and it was visited only by coasters. It lay within the State of South Carolina, about one-third of the distance from Savannah harbor to Charleston, and it was called very properly Port Royal. Although neglected entirely by commerce, it was really the best harbor on the Southern coast. The bar that guarded it lay well out at sea and had an ample depth of water over it. The channel between Hilton Head on the south and Bay Point on the north was a mile wide. Although “the land hereabouts is generally low, the trees are high,” and “a small grove of trees, which tower above all the other trees like a high-crowned hat,” marked the entrance to the harbor unmistakably, so that even a stranger could easily work his way in unless a gale prevailed.

Accordingly, the government decided to take possession of Port Royal, and in October, 1861, began to gather a fleet of warships and transports at Hampton Roads for that purpose. On October 10th Flag Officer Samuel Francis Dupont hoisted his flag on the steam frigate Wabash, of which Capt. C. R. P. Rodgers was commander. The squadron under him included the Susquehanna, Capt. J. L. Lardner; Mohican, Capt. S. W. Godon; Seminole, Capt. John P. Gillis; Pocahontas, Capt. Percival Drayton; Pawnee, Capt. R. W. Wyman; Unadilla, Capt. N. Collins; Ottawa, Capt. T. H. Stevens; Pembina, Capt. J. P. Bankhead; Seneca, Capt. Daniel Ammen, and the Vandalia, Capt. F. L. Haggerty. All of these were regular warships, and the Vandalia was the only sailing ship in the squadron. In addition to these, there were six merchant steamers that had been purchased and armed for use as warships. The warships proper carried 125 guns, all told, of which seven were eleven-inch Dahlgrens, and seventy-nine were eight-inch or better—most of them being nine-inch. The converted merchantmen carried from two to eight thirty-two-pounders each, save one, the Isaac Smith, which carried a rifled thirty-pounder. A force of soldiers, 12,000 strong, under Gen. Thomas W. Sherman, was detailed to coöperate with the squadron, and transports were provided to carry them, while coal-laden schooners were gathered in order to keep the steamers in fuel.

The older readers of this will remember very well the excitement occasioned throughout the nation by the gathering of this vast fleet at Hampton Roads. For the administration had determined to keep the destination of the expedition a secret, and it succeeded so well that the mystery remained until after the fleet was gone.

On October 28th the Vandalia sailed away from Hampton Roads at the head of the coal fleet of twenty-five schooners, the schooner captains having been ordered to go to Tybee Bar, Savannah, in case they parted company. The next day, October 29, 1861, the squadron, the most powerful aggregation of fighting ships the United States had ever brought together, steamed slowly out of the Chesapeake and headed away to the South “after considerable delay in forming a double echelon line outside.” All that night and all the next day the squadron was easily kept in hand, but during the next night the easterly breeze hardened and the seas began to grow. As the squadron passed Cape Hatteras, on the 31st of October, two of the transports touched on the Diamond Reef. No damage was done, but as the squadron continued down the coast the wind canted to the southeast, and before nightfall of Friday, November 1st, a hurricane was upon them. The flag officer gave orders for each captain to look out for himself, and at that the fleet slowly scattered as the ships were headed into the gale.

That was a night never to be forgotten by any landsman afloat in the fleet. As the seas rose the foam and spoondrift turned into tossing, phosphorescent flames that swept across the black water, adding terrors by their weird light to the fears already excited by the laboring of the ships. The warships were well found and able, of course, but a sorrier fleet of transports was never sent to sea, for it was composed in great part of inland water steamers, lighters, and ferryboats, and here they were trying to live in a Hatteras hurricane.

The first to suffer disaster was the transport Governor, a side-wheeler, carrying a battalion of marines, 700 strong. As night came on, the big arching timbers known as the hog-braces gave way one after another. The marines and the crew worked together to repair the damage, with partial success; but she rolled so heavily that her smoke-stack was pitched over the rail, and it was then impossible to keep a full head of steam on, and the pilot could no longer control her. In swinging off into the trough of the sea, she was strained so badly that the seams were opened. The leak grew worse and the rudder chains parted, and there she lay, absolutely helpless and steadily filling with water, in spite of the labors of hundreds of willing men at the pumps and with buckets.

At last daylight came, and with it help. The sailing ship Sabine, Captain Ringgold, hove in sight. It was known that the ships were on soundings, and the Sabine anchored, with the Governor astern of her also at anchor. Then the Sabine paid out chain until she was near enough for a transfer of the men. Seven were killed by being caught between the ships or tumbling into the sea, but the rest were saved, with their arms. The Governor sank. The transport Peerless was also lost, but her people, twenty-six in number, were taken off by the Mohican, Captain Godon.

Off Charleston the squadron took the Susquehanna from the blockaders, and on Monday morning, November 4th, the flagship, with twenty-five other vessels of the fleet, came to anchor off the bar at Port Royal, and here they were eventually joined by all the others that survived the gale.

The storm was widespread, and the people at the North watched the clouds with an anxiety that was equalled by the hope of the South. Moreover, it was the first great expedition the nation had undertaken, and the people were unused to war.

Meantime, some one in the confidence of the government had betrayed the secret, and on November 1st, two days after the fleet sailed, the Confederate Secretary of War telegraphed a warning to the forts at Port Royal and the Confederate fleet at Savannah. The Confederate squadron was under Commodore Josiah Tattnall, he who braved the fire of the Mexican works at Vera Cruz. “His flagship consisted of an old passenger St. John’s steamer, mounting one 32-pound gun forward and one 18-pound gun aft. Then came two ancient, used-up tug-boats, each mounting one 32-pound gun; the next, a rotten North River cattle-boat, mounting one 18-pound gun; a dwarfish tug-boat from the James River, slightly armed, bringing up the rear.”

It was a fleet in which machinery and men were wholly unprotected and, for the purposes of war, was worthless. The Confederate forts were two in number—one, on Hilton Head, on the south side of the channel, called Fort Walker, and the other, on Bay Point, opposite, called Fort Beauregard. These two forts were two and five-eighths miles apart. As described by Scharf, “they were exceedingly well-built earthworks and were rather heavily armed, Fort Walker mounting 23 guns and Fort Beauregard 18, a total of 41; but 22 of these were only 32-pounders or lighter pieces, so that there were in fact but 19 guns fit to cope with the at least 100 heavy rifles and shell-guns of the Federal ships. Gen. Thomas F. Drayton was in command of both posts, with his headquarters at Hilton Head, and Col. R. M. Dunovant had immediate command at Fort Beauregard. The defences were garrisoned by about 2,000 men, but this force was very deficient in trained artillerists, and a small supply of shot and shell forbade much practice with the larger guns.”

John N. Maffitt, a better authority on the Confederate side, says that “the construction of these works had been reprehensibly procrastinated until the ninth hour, when, in haste and confusion, raw troops, strangers to any ordnance above a 12-pound field piece, were hurried into the imperfectly-constructed earthworks to battle without drill or target practice against a masterly array of force.

“The excuse offered by the commanding general for neglecting to exercise and familiarize his artillerists with target-drill was the scarcity of ammunition. The commodore replied: ‘Half the allowance spent in practice will more likely insure good results for the balance in fighting.’”

Within a few hours after the flagship reached the bar at Port Royal, all but two or three of the government force was safely anchored inside. They found that the channel marks had all been removed or placed to deceive. Capt. Charles H. Davis and Mr. Boutelle of the coast survey went in the coast survey steamer Vixen to replace the buoys, being guarded by five of the smaller warships. When this had been done four of the gunboats—the Ottawa, the Seneca, the Pembia, and the Penguin—anchored within three miles of Fort Walker.

Meantime Commodore Tattnall had brought his river-boat squadron through the inland waters to help defend Port Royal, and seeing the gunboats within reach, he made a dash at them, regardless of the character of his own ships. It was like Tattnall to do that; but he was fighting his own countrymen now, and not Mexicans or Chinese. Capt. T. H. Stevens, of the Seneca, who was senior officer, without waiting for orders from the flagship, got up anchor, and with the four gunboats headed in to meet the Confederates. Of course the encounter could have but one result, for the government force was much the greater, and after Lieut. Daniel Ammen had fired an eleven-inch shell into Tattnall’s Savannah, Tattnall turned and ran. And that was the end of the offensive warfare waged by that Confederate squadron.

The plan of attack chosen by Flag Officer Dupont was to divide his force into two squadrons. The first included the Wabash, the Susquehanna, the Mohican, the Seminole, the Pawnee, the Unadilla, the Ottawa, the Pembina, and the Vandalia in tow of the Isaac Smith, a steam gunboat that had been obliged to throw overboard all but one of her guns in the gale, and so was useless for any other purpose than that of a tug. The smaller squadron included the Bienville, the Seneca, the Curlew, the Penguin, and the Augusta, of which all but the Seneca were converted merchantmen carrying thirty-two-pounders; the Seneca, being armed with one eleven-inch Dahlgren and a twenty-pounder rifle, besides two howitzers, was the only one of much consequence for attacking an earthwork.

The larger squadron was to steam in past the fort on Hilton Head (on the south side of the channel), at a distance, when abreast, of 800 yards, and bombard it while passing in; the small squadron was to keep at the north side of the larger one and give such attention as it might at long range to Fort Beauregard over on the north side of the channel. When the forts had been passed, the larger squadron was to turn back and steam out past Hilton Head, firing as before, while the little squadron remained in the harbor to head off any attack from Commodore Tatnall, and, what was of more importance as the event proved, to attack the forts from the rear.

For both forts had been planned to face the roadstead and open sea, and very little had been done to protect the landward faces from an attack from within the harbor.

An offshore gale of wind prevented an attack on the 6th, but the morning of the 7th came with scarcely a ripple on the sea, and at 9 o’clock the two squadrons of warships, in the order named, headed with a flood tide in close order to attack the fort on Hilton Head. They steamed along at six knots per hour, and at 9.26 o’clock precisely a puff of white smoke was seen on the parapet of the fort at the south. Instantly an answering puff was seen on Fort Beauregard at the north, and a round black ball from each came bounding over the smooth water, to fall short and sink out of sight. In a minute the Wabash replied with her two big ten-inch pivots, the Susquehanna followed with an eight-inch pivot, and in ten minutes more the whole fleet was engaged. A hundred huge shells were falling upon and around the fort, burying themselves for a moment in its walls, and then bursting and throwing great masses of sand in the air—masses of sand that fell upon the gunners and the guns there.

But, though inexperienced in war, and but slightly trained in the handling of great guns, the men within the forts were a sturdy host, and fought back in a way that must excite the admiration of all who read the story. The ships were drawing nearer steadily, and there was need for rapid work. To bring one cartridge from the magazine every time a gun was to be loaded required too much time, and the gun’s crews in the forts, regardless of the bursting shells that fell thickly around them, brought cartridges by the armful, and piled them beside the guns.

Nevertheless, they labored in vain. Fire as swiftly as they might and as accurately as they could, the majestic column of steamers passed in with the tide, unimpeded, until well within the harbor, when the longer column turned slowly around and came back, heading to pass this time within 600 yards instead of 800 as before. Sweeping out to sea, they came back again, passing once more at the shorter and more deadly range, and then a number of them came to anchor at a distance of 1,200 yards from the fort, and began a steady fire at a sure range, while “the Vandalia, in tow of the Isaac Smith by a long hawser, swept in long, graceful, but inconvenient curves past and among these vessels. The Unadilla, whose machinery was disabled, pursued her eccentric orbit, her commanding officer hailing and requesting other vessels to get out of the way, as he ‘could not stop.’ As he swept by, again and again the droll song of the man with the cork leg that would not let him tarry was brought to mind.” So says Ammen. But while the Unadilla amused the government forces she was not amusing the Confederates, for she kept her batteries working as relentlessly as her machinery worked.

And then came the steamer Pocahontas, under Capt. Percival Drayton, a Southern-born naval officer whose regard for his oath had prevented his deserting the flag. The Pocahontas had been delayed at sea by the great gale, but although she arrived too late to join in the procession, she ran in close to the beach southeast of the fort, and, stopping there, opened an enfilading fire. There was a single thirty-two-pounder on this flank of the fort, and Gen. Thomas Drayton, commanding the fort, had it trained on the Pocahontas. General Drayton on shore and Captain Drayton afloat, brothers, were firing on each other. But the gun ashore was knocked to pieces by a shot from the ship, and thereafter the fire of the Pocahontas began to drive the Confederates from their guns, for there were no traverses between the guns to protect the men from an enfilading fire.

Meantime the smaller squadron left within opened an enfilading fire on both the Hilton Head fort and Fort Beauregard on the north side of the channel. “This enfilading fire on so still a sea annoyed and damaged us excessively,” says General Drayton in his report. It became more annoying still as time passed, for the ebb tide began to run, and the gunboats were swept down until within 400 yards of the forts, and shots from even the howitzers began to tell with deadly effect. It was a storm that no force of men could stand. By 1.15 P.M., according to one account, and by 2 o’clock at the latest, “all but three of the guns on the water front had been disabled, and only 500 pounds of powder [remained] in the magazine” of the Hilton Head fort. The work of the fleet was done. The Confederates began to evacuate the fort on Hilton Head. Lookouts on the Ottawa were the first to see the men leaving the fort, and signals were soon flying to announce the fact. In a moment the Pembina was signalling the same story, while men who ran aloft on the Wabash hailed the deck to confirm the news.

At this the order to cease firing fluttered in the air. The Wabash and the Susquehanna steamed close in where their huge broadsides would bear directly on the fort, and Capt. C. R. P. Rodgers was sent in a boat to make an examination.

“The entire fleet, now resting on its guns, watched the whaleboat pull out from the wing of the huge frigate and make its way like a cockleshell toward the grim and silent fort. Thousands of eyes centered on the little boat with increasing interest as she drew nearer the shore. Her keel soon grated on the beach, and the officers were seen to jump out, approach the fort and enter, and for a time they were lost to view. Then Commander Rodgers was seen scrambling up the highest part of the ramparts, carrying the American colors with him; and at the first glimpse of the beautiful ensign the long suspense gave place to tremendous cheers from every craft in the fleet.” So says Maclay.

Although the main attack had been made on the Hilton Head fort, the one at the north had received attention at long range from the larger squadron, and the gunboats within the harbor had enfiladed it. It had suffered so much, in fact, that the troops abandoned it as soon as they saw that Hilton Head had surrendered. Vessels that were sent to reconnoitre found the flag down, and the next morning Capt. Daniel Ammen of the Seneca hoisted the American flag over the building that had been used as headquarters there. Of his experience Ammen has written as follows:

“He went into the house without a suspicion of possible injury, and found everything had been removed. The earthworks and magazines were hastily examined, and the encampment under the pine trees half a mile distant was then visited.

“Returning to the vicinity of the earthworks, where our flag had been hoisted an hour before, a dull explosion was heard, a cloud of smoke went up, and when it passed away there was no vestige of the small frame house upon which our flag had been hoisted. A sailor walking near had fallen into the snare by his foot striking a wire fastened to a peg, through which a ‘spur tube’ had exploded a quantity of powder placed under the floor of the house. The sailor was knocked down and stunned for a few minutes.”

The government loss in the fight was eight killed, and six seriously and seventeen slightly wounded. The Confederates lost “eleven killed, forty-eight wounded and four missing.”

Admiral Porter says that “the victory at Port Royal put new life into Union hearts.” It “gave the powers of Europe notice that we could and would win back the forts that had been filched from us.” It “showed conclusively that the time-honored theory that one gun on shore was equal to five on shipboard no longer held good.” And of Dupont he says that “all the qualities of a great commander were possessed in an eminent degree” by him.

The harbor of Port Royal remained under the flag. The adjoining waters were patrolled by government gunboats, and Tybee Island and other approaches to Savannah soon fell into government hands. Later on Port Royal was used as a base for the operations against Charleston, which will be described further on.