DuPont, Samuel Francis (1803-1865) to Edward Bates

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 1864. 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 were caught in a blistering crossfire, and he 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. Though he enlisted the help of Maryland U.S. Representative Henry Winter Davis to get his official report of the incident published by the Navy, an ultimately inconclusive congressional investigation into the failure essentially turned into a trial of whether du Pont had misused his ships and misled his superiors. Du Pont's attempt to garner the support of President Abraham Lincoln was ignored, and he returned home to Delaware. He returned to Washington to serve briefly on a board reviewing naval promotions. However, subsequent events arguably vindicated du Pont's judgment and capabilities. A subsequent U.S. naval attack on the city failed, despite being launched with a significantly larger fleet of armored ships. Charleston was finally taken only by the invasion of General Sherman's army in 1865.