But perhaps the victory was due, more than anything else, to the practical skill and originality of Captain Dupont. He saw at once that the work at Hilton Head was the important one, and that if that were reduced, the other would be untenable. When first leading his ships up the harbor in mid-channel, he engaged both forts at about two thousand yards distance. On making the turn and coming down again towards the south, he passed in front of Fort Walker at eight hundred yards. This distance was of his own choosing, and he had the range beforehand. But the guns of the fort had to be sighted anew, in the heat and excitement of actual conflict; not an easy thing to do, even for the most experienced. After going again toward the north at longer range, he once more made the turn and repassed the fort on his way back, this time at six hundred yards. So, the vessels were always in motion, and after every turn presented themselves to the enemy at a different distance. It was this second promenade of the ships, pouring into the fort their terrific broadsides at the short distance of six hundred yards, that did the effective work of the engagement. At this time, according to nearly all the commanders' reports, the enemy's shot mostly passed over the ships, injuring only their spars and rigging. Throughout the battle none of them were struck more than ten times in the hull, none were seriously disabled, and two of them were not hit at all. Captain Dupont said afterward that he believed he had saved a hundred lives by engaging the fort at close range.
After the first rejoicings were over, there was a singular feeling of disappointment in the North at the seeming want of result from the victory at Port Royal. It was expected that the troops would move at once into the interior, capture the important cities, and revolutionize the states of Georgia and South Carolina. One of the newspaper correspondents wrote home, a few days after the battle, "In three weeks we shall be in Charleston and Savannah;" and in the popular mind at that time the possession of a city seemed more important than anything else, in the way of military success. So when the months of November, December, and January passed by, without anything being done that the public could appreciate, there was no little surprise manifested at the inactivity of the army in South Carolina.
In reality the military commanders were busy from the outset. The day after the battle, Captain Gillmore, the chief engineer, made a reconnaissance to the north side of the island, and laid out there a work to control the interior water-way between Charleston and Savannah; and before the end of the month he had commenced his plans for the reduction of Fort Pulaski, which in due time were brought to a successful issue. But these movements, and others like them, were after all secondary in importance to the main object of the Port Royal expedition, namely, the permanent acquisition of Port Royal itself, as an aid to the naval operations on the Atlantic coast.
The government at Washington was by this time fully alive to the magnitude of the contest and its requirements. One of the most pressing of these requirements was the blockade; which must be maintained effectively along an extensive line of coast, exposed to severe weather during a large part of the year. The vessels of the blockading squadron must be supplied with stores and coal at great inconvenience and from a long distance; and when one of them needed repairs it must be sent all the way to New York or Philadelphia to get a new topmast or chain cable. This involved much expense, long delays, and the risk of temporary inefficiency in the blockade. It was important that the fleet should have, near at hand, a capacious harbor, where store-houses and workshops might be established, and where shelter might be had for the necessary inspections and repairs. Port Royal was such a harbor; and it also served, in course of time, as a base for further military operations. It had been selected by Captain Dupont and General Sherman in joint council.
THE SEA ISLANDS AND FORT PULASKI.
The sea islands of South Carolina and Georgia are grouped in a nearly continuous chain along the coast, between the mainland and the sea. They are flat, with only a few slight elevations here and there; and there is not, over their whole area, a single boulder, pebble, or gravel bed, nor any spot where the ledge rock comes to the surface. The soil at first seems to be sandy; but you soon discover that it has mingled with it a fine black loam and is extremely productive. It yields the "sea-island cotton," a variety of long fibre, formerly much valued for certain purposes of textile manufacture. There is no sod or turf, like that of the Northern states, but the fields not under cultivation produce a tall thin grass, which is soon trampled out of existence by passing wagons or by soldiers on the march. In the clearings are the live oak and the great magnolia, both evergreen. The palmetto is also a conspicuous object, and the dwarf palmetto grows abundantly under the shadow of the pine woods. Everywhere there is a large proportion of hard-wood shrubs and trees with polished, waxy-looking, evergreen leaves.
There are many extensive plantations, where the owners often remain during a large part of the year. Their houses are not grouped in villages, but scattered at a considerable distance apart, each on its own plantation, with the negro cabins usually in long lines at the rear or on one side. The roads from one plantation to another run through the pine woods, or over the plains, bordered on each side by cotton or corn fields, and marking the only division between them. There is seldom to be seen such a thing as a rail fence, and of course never a stone wall.
Hilton Head, where we were now encamped, was one of the largest of these islands. It was twelve miles long, in a general east and west direction, and about five miles in extreme width, north and south. At its Port Royal end, the sand bluffs rose to the height of eight or ten feet above the beach, giving the name of "head" more especially to this part of the island; elsewhere they were generally much lower. Along its sea-front there was a magnificent beach, ten miles long, broken only at one place by a creek fordable at half tide. At frequent intervals on this route there were marks of the slow encroachment of the sea upon the land. Often you would come upon the white, dry stump of a dead pine, standing up high above the beach on the ends of its sprawling roots, like so many corpulent spider legs. Once it grew on the low bluffs above high-water mark, as its descendants are doing now. But the sea gradually undermined its roots and washed out the soil from between them, till it gave up the ghost for want of nourishment, and in time came to be stranded here, half-way down the beach. It looked as if the tree had moved down from the bluffs toward the water, though in reality the beach had moved up past the tree. The same thing was going on all along the coast in this region. There were trees on the very edge of the bluff, with their roots toward the sea exposed and bare, but with enough still buried in the soil on the land side to hold the trunk upright and give it sap; while here and there was one already losing its grip and slowly bending over toward the sea. When it has nothing more to rest on than the sands of the beach, its branches and trunk decay, but its roots and stump remain for many years whitening in the sun, like a skeleton on the plains.