After receiving a letter from Assistant Secretary of the Navy Gustavus Fox criticizing his performance Silas Stringham resigned his position as head of the Atlantic Blockading Squadron on September 16, 1861. He was replaced by Louis M. Goldsborough. The following month the Atlantic Blockading Squadron was split into two parts. Goldsborough would head the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron that spanned from Cape Henry to Cape Fear, while Samuel Du Pont would lead the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron extending from the northern border of North Carolina to Key West. Both men were given the rank of Flag Officer.

Du Pont would lead the Naval portion of a joint expedition with the Army to establish a deep-water port within his territory. Brigadier General Thomas W. Sherman was ordered to work with Du Pont and organize a 12,000-man infantry force. The target was initially to be either Bulls Bay, SC or Fernandina, FL. As planning continued it was apparent that these sites were too small. The expedition would be headed to Port Royal, SC an area that the Blockade Board had called the finest harbor south of the Chesapeake Bay. This would be the largest joint Army-Navy expedition to date. Commodore Francis S. Haggerty of the Vandalia led a convoy of 25 supply ships south on October 28th. Their destination was shrouded in secrecy. Only a few people knew where the flotilla was headed. The captains of the other ships each had a sealed envelope to open only if they became separated. Du Pont would command the largest flotilla ever assembled with a total of over 75 ships. He would leave the next day on the Wabash with the faster ships- 11 regular gunboats and six armed merchant vessels with a total of about 151 guns. There would also be 25 transports for the 12,000 troops. The flagship would be the 44-gun Wabash, accompanied by the steam sloops Susquehanna, Pawnee and Mohican, the steamers Bienville, Seminole, Pocahontas, and Augusta, and the sloop Vandalia.

Confederate Brigadier General Roswell S. Ripley commanded the Department of South Carolina. Two forts were constructed to protect Port Royal Sound by engineers Major Francis D. Lee and Captain J.W. Gregory. The forts were separated by over 2 miles of water. Fort Beauregard at Bay Point on Phillips Island protected the left flank of the Sound. It had 13 guns inside the fort, along with 6 additional guns most along an outer work manned by a total of about 640 men commanded by Colonel R.G.M. Dunovant. Fort Walker on Hilton Head Island had 23 guns, along with a one-gun outer work manned by about 1450 men of the 11th SC commanded by Colonel William C. Heyward. In what was an example of a battle in the Civil War pitting brother versus brother Brigadier General Thomas Drayton was the overall commander of the Port Royal defenses, while his brother Percival Drayton the Commander of the U.S.S. Pocahontas would be firing on him. Thomas had moved his headquarters from Beaufort to Hilton Head on the 6th and he would be in Fort Walker during the battle.

On November 1 the flotilla encountered a hurricane-strength storm off Cape Hatteras that scattered the ships. Two transports the Governor and Peerless sank. Other ships were able to rescue most of the troops onboard except for seven men who drowned. The Isaac Smith had to throw all of her guns overboard except for one in order to avoid sinking. The Belvidere returned to Fort Monroe. On November 2nd the Wabash arrived off Port Royal and from his flagship Du Pont could see only one other gunboat. By November 4 the rest of the flotilla had joined him with one major exception. The army had placed all of its ordinance and ammunition on one ship the Ocean Express, which was the only ship that did not rendezvous with the fleet. The soldiers would have to land with only 100 rounds each and no field guns. This meant that it would no longer be a joint operation since the Navy would have to silence the forts’ guns before troops could land.

Du Pont devised a strategy that would take advantage of the size of the Bay. He felt that Fort Walker was the stronger of the two forts and would reduce it first. Shown below, two columns of ships would enter the Bay. The main column consisted of the Wabash, Mohican, Seminole, Pawnee, Unadilla, Ottawa, Pembina and the Vandalia. These ships would pass the forts firing on both. After travelling two miles into the Bay they would turn west and south coming closer to Fort Walker and fire on the weaker northern wall and enfilade the strongest wall that was facing the Bay. They would then repeat the pattern in a circle. The second column of 5 lighter boats the Bienville, Seneca, Curlew, Penguin and Augusta would range to the starboard protecting the flank of the main column from attack by the Confederate Navy bottling them up near the mouth of Skull Creek where they would then stop and fire into Fort Walker’s weaker side walls. The Confederates had a small Navy in the sound under Commander Josiah Tatnall that consisted of 3 tugs and a river steamer each outfitted with 2-3 guns.

On November 7th the seas were unusually calm with conditions ideal for an attack by a steam-powered fleet. General quarters were sounded at 9:00 AM and the fleet cleared for action at 9:17. The Confederates opened fire at 9:27 followed shortly thereafter by the Wabash. The guns on Fort Walker were on the parapets and as a result exposed to fire. The Confederate forts had poorly-sighted guns, incompletely trained crews and inferior powder. They were not ready for a prolonged duel and quickly tired. In addition, they were trying to hit a moving target in the steam-powered Union fleet firing at a rate of about two dozen shells per minute. On the first circle only the Susqehanna and Bienville followed the Wabash on the outward arc. The remaining ships stayed inside the harbor and enfiladed both forts. By the end of the third pass Fort Walker had only 3 guns still operational. After 4 hours of firing the Confederates evacuated both forts and fled to the mainland. Five hundred surfboats then brought the 12,000-man landing force ashore. Nearly all of the Union ships had been hit with 8 killed and 23 wounded. Inside the forts 10 defenders were killed and 20 wounded. The Union occupied Port Royal and Beaufort for the remainder of the war. This battle showed that the old maxim that one land gun was worth four on a ship was no longer true. Warships that were steam powered were no longer at the mercy of the tides and winds and with improved ordinance were fully the equal of land-based guns.

The battle of Port Royal also resulted in a major change in the Confederacy’s coastal defense strategy. On November 6th Davis appointed General Robert E. Lee the head of a new military department after his failures in West Virginia. The department included the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia and eastern Florida. Lee began abandoning many of his coastal fortifications due to the superiority of the Union Navy and focused resources on the protection of Savannah and Charleston. An integral part of this defense was the Charleston and Savannah Railroad that allowed him to quickly shuttle troops and resources between the cities and along the path of the railroad. He established his new headquarters at Coosawatchie on the railroad.

There are no known remnants of Fort Beauregard at Bay Point on St. Phillips Island. Fort Wiki lists the location of the fort at 32.25694, -80.63333. St. Phillips Island is an unoccupied 4-mile long barrier island accessible only by boat with no water or electricity that was sold to the state of South Carolina by Ted Turner in 2017 and is now part of the Hunting Island State Park. It can be reached by ferry. The trails on the island do not appear to lead to Bay Point.

Fort Walker lies within a gated golf community, the Port Royal Plantation. I visited the fort through the Coastal Discovery Museum Forts of Port Royal Tour, pictures shown below.