Neptune's Needle

Naval officer. Du Pont’s Grandfather wrote to his friend Thomas Jefferson asking for a naval position for his grandson. Jefferson wrote to President James Madison, who sent the twelve-year-old an appointment as midshipman (19 Dec. 1815) as well as an appointment to West Point.

Du Pont served in the Mediterranean on the Franklin (1817-1818) and the Erie (1818-1820). He was assigned to the North Carolina (1824-1826), which had a thousand-volume library that he used extensively, passing his examination for lieutenant in 1826. He was promoted to commander on 10 January 1843.

In the Mexican War, Du Pont got valuable experience blockading the lower California coast. He commanded theCyane at Monterey and landed a battalion commanded by Major John C. Fremont at San Diego on 29 July 1846. Du Pont was in the battle of San Gabriel (8-9 Jan. 1847) and attacked Mazatlan, Mexico (10 Nov. 1847), and San Jose de Guaymas (15 Feb. 1848), where he rescued marines besieged at a mission house.

In 1855 Du Pont served on the Naval Efficiency Board, which made the controversial recommendation that inefficient officers be removed, and was promoted to captain that year. He was involved with William B. Reed's expedition to China (1857-1859) and reached Nagasaki, Japan, on 11 August 1858 in the Minnesota. He became commander of the Philadelphia Navy Yard on 31 December 1860.

After the Civil War began, Du Pont organized water transport for troops prevented from reaching Washington by riots in Baltimore. During the first summer of the war, he served on the Blockade Board, which planned the amphibious operations against the coast of the Confederacy that were conducted throughout the war. On 18 September 1861 he was appointed flag officer and commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. He won the first major Federal victory of the war by capturing the forts at Port Royal, South Carolina (7 Nov. 1861). He was promoted to rear admiral on 30 July 1862.

In 1863 the Abraham Lincoln administration, in desperate political need of a victory, ordered Du Pont to attack Charleston. Du Pont's civilian superiors, unfamiliar with Charleston Harbor's hydrography, did not understand that the tactics of Port Royal or New Orleans could not be used in Charleston, where no room was available to maneuver. He doubted that a purely naval attack relying on monitors, which mounted only two guns and were offensively weak, could succeed against miles of fortifications and obstructions. On 7 April 1863, from 2:50 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., nine Federal ironclads with twenty-three guns attacked Charleston and were repulsed. The U.S. Navy could not pass Fort Sumter. Du Pont was relieved by Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren on 6 July 1863. Du Pont was upset that Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles, who ordered the attack, refused to share blame for the worst Federal naval defeat of the war.

After a trip to Washington to serve on a promotion board, Du Pont died in Philadelphia.

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Peter Richards