Bombardment of Port Royal, S. C.

From an engraving by Ridgeway of a drawing by Parsons.

And then came the steamer Pocahontas, under Capt. Percival Drayton, a Southern-born naval officer whose regard for his oath had prevented his deserting the flag. The Pocahontas had been delayed at sea by the great gale, but although she arrived too late to join in the procession, she ran in close to the beach southeast of the fort, and, stopping there, opened an enfilading fire. There was a single thirty-two-pounder on this flank of the fort, and Gen. Thomas Drayton, commanding the fort, had it trained on the Pocahontas. General Drayton on shore and Captain Drayton afloat, brothers, were firing on each other. But the gun ashore was knocked to pieces by a shot from the ship, and thereafter the fire of the Pocahontas began to drive the Confederates from their guns, for there were no traverses between the guns to protect the men from an enfilading fire.

Meantime the smaller squadron left within opened an enfilading fire on both the Hilton Head fort and Fort Beauregard on the north side of the channel. “This enfilading fire on so still a sea annoyed and damaged us excessively,” says General Drayton in his report. It became more annoying still as time passed, for the ebb tide began to run, and the gunboats were swept down until within 400 yards of the forts, and shots from even the howitzers began to tell with deadly effect. It was a storm that no force of men could stand. By 1.15 P.M., according to one account, and by 2 o’clock at the latest, “all but three of the guns on the water front had been disabled, and only 500 pounds of powder [remained] in the magazine” of the Hilton Head fort. The work of the fleet was done. The Confederates began to evacuate the fort on Hilton Head. Lookouts on the Ottawa were the first to see the men leaving the fort, and signals were soon flying to announce the fact. In a moment the Pembina was signalling the same story, while men who ran aloft on the Wabash hailed the deck to confirm the news.

Bombardment and Capture of Forts Walker and Beauregard, November 7, 1861.

From an engraving by Perine.

At this the order to cease firing fluttered in the air. The Wabash and the Susquehanna steamed close in where their huge broadsides would bear directly on the fort, and Capt. C. R. P. Rodgers was sent in a boat to make an examination.

“The entire fleet, now resting on its guns, watched the whaleboat pull out from the wing of the huge frigate and make its way like a cockleshell toward the grim and silent fort. Thousands of eyes centered on the little boat with increasing interest as she drew nearer the shore. Her keel soon grated on the beach, and the officers were seen to jump out, approach the fort and enter, and for a time they were lost to view. Then Commander Rodgers was seen scrambling up the highest part of the ramparts, carrying the American colors with him; and at the first glimpse of the beautiful ensign the long suspense gave place to tremendous cheers from every craft in the fleet.” So says Maclay.