1-624-551 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Samuel Francis Du Pont, admiral in the United States Navy, 1862-1867. Du Pont (1803-1865) was promoted to Rear Admiral after he successfully commanded the bombardment of Port Royal, South Carolina in 1861, an operation which secured Union control of waters off the coast of southern Georgia and eastern Florida. Despite his belief that it could not succeed without the support of substantial land forces, he later commanded the ill-fated naval attack on Charleston, South Carolina in April 1863, in which five of his nine ironclad warships were disabled by heavy fire from Confederate shore batteries. Du Pont was held responsible for the failure of the attack, and was relieved of his command at his own request soon afterwards. An engraving from volume I of The War with the South : a History of the Late Rebellion, by Robert Tomes, Benjamin G Smith, New York, Virtue & Yorston, 3 Volumes, 1862-1867.