The Battle of Port Royal
Most Americans now associate the South Carolina Sea Island of Hilton Head with luxurious golf and beach resorts. But on Nov. 7, 1861, a small but furious land-and-naval battle occurred there that proved to have strategic consequences for both North and South. This book tells the story of that battle in a concise but reasonably thorough manner that will appeal to a popular audience. Author Michael Coker, a native Charlestonian, begins his account of the battle with the assembly of a flotilla of Federal warships, transports and supply vessels in late October 1861 off Hampton Roads, Va., under the overall command of Flag Officer S.F. Du Pont, head of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. Du Pont’s armada also included 600 marines and more than 10,000 infantrymen. His objective was Port Royal, about 30 miles north of Savannah and one of the finest natural harbors on the South Atlantic seacoast. Gale force winds off Cape Hatteras scattered Du Pont’s expedition and sank or disabled some of the less seaworthy vessels. Still, more than 60 vessels eventually assembled off Hilton Head. Two Confederate earthworks protected the entrance to Port Royal Sound: Fort Walker on Hilton Head and Fort Beauregard directly across the water on Bay Point Island. Du Pont’s plan of attack on the Confederate forts was ingenious. Instead of sailing into the sound in single file, exposing his warships to a Confederate crossfire, Du Port navigated his fleet between the two forts in an elliptical pattern, thus permitting them to enfilade Fort Walker, the larger of the two forts, while minimizing the exposure of his ships to counter-fire from the forts. Ironically, a ship commanded by Percival Drayton, brother of the Confederate commander at Port Royal, Gen. Thomas F. Drayton, delivered some of the most destructive fire on the forts. A Confederate mosquito fleet in the area lacked the firepower to aid the two forts. After four hours of shelling by Du Pont’s heavy naval batteries had disabled some of Fort Walker’s guns, the Confederates abandoned the fort. With Fort Walker knocked out of the fight, the defenders of Fort Beauregard hastily retreated into the interior, leaving the Federals in control of Port Royal. Total casualties on both sides numbered fewer than 100. Yet the battle had some far-reaching consequences. For the South, the loss of Port Royal proved a heavy blow to defense of its southern coast. The capture of Port Royal gave the North a strategic coaling and supply station that the U.S. Navy needed to sustain its blockade of the South Atlantic, plus a secure base for the Federal army to menace the South Carolina and Georgia coastal area. The Union victory at Port Royal also lifted Northern morale, which was still depressed from the defeat at Bull Run a few months earlier. Coker writes well. His account of the Battle of Port Royal will appeal to readers interested in Civil War naval warfare as well as those with a special interest in the war in the Palmetto State. Several dozen photographs of the major participants in the battle and contemporary newspaper or magazine illustrations enliven the text. Numerous sidebars explore peripheral issues like the construction of the Confederate forts and the so-called Port Royal Experiment that brought Northern civilians to Hilton Head to educate former slaves and coordinate cotton production. In a few places these sidebars seem to swamp the text, though on the whole they are a valuable addition to the book. Coker’s book is devoid of footnotes, endnotes an order of battle or an index. Its bibliography is abbreviated. Nonetheless it is apparent that Coker drilled deep into a wide variety of source material in preparing his history, including archival resources scattered from Charleston to Michigan. The upshot is a snappily written, yet scholarly, treatment of an obscure battle that had a far bigger impact on the Civil War than the number of its casualties suggests. This reviewer enthusiastically recommends The Battle of Port Royal. Reviewer: C. Michael Harrington C. Michael Harrington is a member of the Houston Civil War Round Table and Civil War Aficionados. He has written several articles on South Carolina Confederates. A practicing lawyer, he has degrees in economics from Yale and Cambridge and a law degree from Harvard.
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Illustrated, photographs, maps, bibliography, 128 pp., 2009, The History Press,