Courage in Blue and Gray

At five o’clock on Tuesday morning, October 29, 1861, a single gun on board the Wabash, Commodore Samuel F. DuPont’s flagship, signaled what was then the greatest armada ever assembled in America to hoist anchor and steam slowly out of port at Hampton Roads, Virginia until each vessel found its position in echelons of inverted Vs. One by one, an expedition of some 77 ships with more than 12,000 soldiers aboard– three brigades of fourteen regiments - under the command of Brigadier General Thomas W. Sherman departed the harbor, its destination known only to a top few officers.

Together, this powerful fleet of warships carried 155 guns, 1,500 tons of ordinance, 1,500 horses, eight thousand bags of oats, 2,000 bushels of coal, wheelbarrows, shovels, picks, cement, lumber, saws, transport wagons and drivers and enough food and water to last men and animals fifteen days. Scattered among the craft were 500 surf boats for landing troops with coastal seamen to man them, and 1,000 contraband Blacks to labor on fortifications.

The destination, guarded by each captain in sealed orders, had been agreed upon a month earlier at a meeting in Secretary Seward’s house but, inevitably, the plans for this joint army – navy operation leaked. Just as the fleet was leaving Hampton Roads, Confederate Acting Secretary of War, Judah P. Benjamin, sent a telegram from Richmond to Savannah: “I have just received information which I consider entirely reliable that the enemy’s expedition is intended for Port Royal.”

Just days after the surrender of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln ordered a blockade of all southern ports. This was an ambitious edict: the navy had only 42 ships in commission (only three were actually available for blockade duty) and there were nearly 3,000 miles of coastline to secure. New steam technology also presented opportunities as well as problems; while no longer dependent upon favorable tides and winds, steamships would require coaling stations and maintenance facilities to keep a blockade fleet on the ready. Clearly the South had the advantage; only Hampton Roads and Key West, Florida were in Union hands.

The North set up a Strategy Board to find solutions – one of which was to identify certain South Carolina and Georgia coastal targets. Initially, DuPont, the naval representative on the Board, did not favor an assault on Port Royal, although he recognized its political and geographical significance.  The port was protected by prewar fortifications, naval forces, a standing army and it had good inland communications. Also, an amphibious assault (then known as a combined operation) was risky and had never really been tried before, certainly not to the degree necessary to take Port Royal. Unlike ground operations, which were relatively easy to transport and supply, an invading army, once ashore would not be tactically mobile; it would be poorly supported with cavalry, artillery and logistics, and, of course, horses and mules take poorly to ships. Also, inter service operations were rare during the War and, with the force needed to stage a successful assault of Port Royal; the challenges to a unified command were formidable.

Once underway, the fleet ran into gale winds and high seas at Cape Hatteras and was scattered. “As darkness settled over a stormy sea,” Lieutenant Daniel Ammen, aboard the gunboat Seneca, remembered, “the driven drops of rain struck the face roughly as pellets.”  By noon on November 1, seeing that the smaller transports could not keep up, DuPont signaled for all ships to continue independently.

The Governor, a troop transport with 600 marines aboard, sank. The sailing frigate Sabine