Dupont, Samuel F., 1803-1865 to Edward Bates

Written by Rear Admiral DuPont to U.S. Attorney General Bates. Says he perceives by a return made by the Navy Department to the House of Representatives on prizes that many cases have been appealed to the Supreme Court. Says many officers and himself have a financial interest in the proceedings and that he will ask his friend the Maryland U.S. Representative Henry Winter Davis to be his counsel before that court, if the goverment is not employing him. Du Pont was given direct orders from the Navy Department to launch an attack on Charleston, South Carolina, the main area in which the Confederate blockade had been unsuccessful, at the beginning of 1863. Though du Pont believed that Charleston could not be taken without significant land troop support, he nevertheless attacked with nine ironclads on April 7, 1863. Unable to navigate properly in the obstructed channels leading to the harbor, his ships caught in a blistering crossfire, and the withdrew them before nightfall. Five of his nine ironclads were disabled in the failed attack, and one more subsequently sank. The Secretary of the Navy, Gideon Welles, blamed du Pont for the highly publicized failure at Charleston. Du Pont himself anguished over it and, after one more major engagement in which he sank a Confederate ironclad, was relieved of command on July 5, 1863 at his own request.