Rear Adm. Samuel F Du Pont.
From Johnson, The Defense of Charleston Harbor.
Charleston and
the Federal Blockade 1861-63
With Fort Sumter in Confederate hands, the port of
Charleston became a most irritating loophole in the Federal naval
blockade of the Atlantic coastdoubly irritating because at
Charleston "rebellion first lighted the flame of civil war." As late as
January 1863, it was reported that "vessels ply to and from Charleston
and Nassau [Bahamas] with the certainty and promptness of a regular
line." In 2 months of the spring following, 21 Confederate vessels
cleared Charleston and 15 came in. Into Charleston came needed war
supplies; out went cotton in payment.
Capture of Port Royal Harbor on November 7,1861, by a
Federal fleet under Capt. Samuel F. Du Pont, however, had made possible
land and sea operations against Charleston. In June 1862, an attempt was
made by Maj. Gen. D. H. Hunter to push through to Charleston by James
Island on the south. This ended in Union disaster at Secessionville.
Meanwhile, the Monitor-Merrimac action in Hampton Roads had
indicated the feasibility of a naval "ironclad" expedition against Fort
Sumter, the key to the harbor. Sumter, now largely rebuilt, had become a
formidable work armed with some 95 guns and garrisoned with upwards of
500 men. In May 1862, the Navy Department had determined to capture
Charleston "as soon as Richmond falls." To Du Pont, who was now rear
admiral, there seemed to be a "morbid appetite in the land to have
Charleston." The War Department, meanwhile, far from supplying
additional troops to General Hunter's command in South Carolina,
withdrew units to reenforce General McClellan in Virginia.
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