Battle of Port Royal Sound

The Anaconda Plan was a Civil War blockade strategy used by the Union during the Civil War. This plan was used in hopes to prevent the Confederate States from trading with European countries as well as hoping to cut the Confederacy in half by taking control of the Mississippi River to New Orleans to stop shipments of resources between the west and the east. The hope was to strangle the Confederacy internally and externally, therefore, forcing a quick surrender. The Battle of Port Royal was one of the Union's successes at capturing critical ports along the coastline of South Carolina and the Confederacy.

The location depicted on this map is the Port Royal Sound Foundation Maritime Center. People can come to this center to learn about the unique wildlife and the coastal community. Their mission is to preserve the Port Royal Sound for the environmental, cultural, and economic well-being of the area (1).

The Battle of Port Royal was fought on November 7th, 1861, and ended in a Union victory. Port Royal can be said to be one of the best natural harbors on the Atlantic coast of America and this battle demonstrated the difficulty the Confederacy would have in order to defend their coastlines against the Union and their Anaconda Plan (2). There were two forts that protected the bay, Fort Beauregard and Fort Walker. Fort Beauregard consisted of 19 or 20 guns and 640 men. Fort Walker had 23 guns, with 18 of those facing the sea and 622 men. These two forts were separated by a distance of three miles which made it difficult to withstand the U.S. Naval fleet. To have been effective, the ports needed artillery that had much longer ranges and larger caliber, which were not available at this time in the war (3).

The Confederates were outnumbered by the Union forces. Flag Officer Samuel du Pont attacked with a fleet of 600 marines and 17 warships, accompanied by an army of over 12,000 men. Bad weather postponed the attack from November 1st until November 7th. Du Pont's plan was to maneuver his ships to counter the advantages of the forts. Du Pont ordered his ships to continue moving when the ships tried to bombard land but had to anchor offshore in order to keep their positions. This formed an oval formation, ensuring that each ship would fire upon the land fortifications (2).

On November 7th, Du Pont's fleet fired upon Fort Walker at 9:30 AM where the firing continued until 1:15 PM when the Confederate garrison was seen leaving the fort. Only three of the sea-facing guns were still intact at Fort Walker. Fort Walker was disarmed (2).

After Union forces took control of Fort Walker, Fort Beauregard was soon abandoned. It was noticed that the damage to Fort Beauregard was minimal, but the battle was seen as lost and there was no way to fight back to keep the Union fleet out of Port Royal Bay so the Confederates fled. With the occupation of Port Royal Bay, the U.S. Navy had a very valuable base for the remainder of the war. The bay was furtherly used as a supply depot as well as a coaling station, which was very essential for steamships to continue the blockade of the coastline (2).

(1) “Learn about Us & Our Mission.” Port Royal Sound Foundation, October 21, 2021.

https://portroyalsoundfoundation.org/about-us/. 

(2) Rickard, J. "Battle of Port Royal, 7 November 1861, History of War." August 14th 2007. http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_port_royal.html.

(3) Staff, HistoryNet. “Battle of Port Royal.” HistoryNet. HistoryNet, August 9, 2016.

https://www.historynet.com/battle-of-port-royal.htm.