Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 03.djvu/366

 DU PONT

DL: I'UNT

y^/.

Congress. In 1824 he returned to the Mediterra- nean on the Xorth Can>lin<i. beconiinj; lier sailinj; master; four montlis of this cruise he served as lieutenant on the rorpoise. In 1829 he went on a three yeJirs' cruise to Europe on the Ontario. From 1835 to 1838 he was executive officer of the Warren and of the CouKUlla- tion, and commanded the Grampus and the Warren in the Gulf of Mexico. From 1838 to 1841 he was again in the Mediterranean on the Ohio, Commo- dore Hull's flag-sliip. In 1842 lie sailed for China in command of the Perry, but was

\compelled b\- sickness to leave his ship at Rio de Janeiro and come home. He sailed for the Pacific in 1845 in command of Commodore Stockton's flag-ship, the Congress, reaching California at the com- mencement of the Mexican war. Transferred to the command of the Cyane July 23, 1846, he took San Diego and La Paz, spiked the guns of San Bias, and enterel Guaymas harbor, in all capturing or destroying about thirty vessels and sweeping the enemy from the gulf of California. At the taking of Mazatlan, under Commodore Shubrick, Nov. 11. 1847, he commanded the line of boats which forced the entrance of the main harbor. He de- feated a large bodj- of Mexicans near San Jose, Feb. lo, 1848, landing with a force of sailqrs and marines and relieving Lieutenant Heywood, who was liard pressed at the mission liou.se three miles away. Afterward he led or dispatched several successful expeditions inland, helping the army to scour the country and to scatter and capture the enemy. He was ordered home in 1848. In 18jT on the Minnesota he went to China, where he was an ob.server of the capture of the forts at the entrance of the Peiho by the French and English naval forces. He visited Japan, India and Ara- bia, and returned to Boston in May, 1859. Before the outbreak of the civil war he was put in com- mand of the Philadelphia navy yard, Dec. 31, 1860, and when communication was interrupted with Washington, on liis own resjwnsibility he sent a force to cover the disembarkation of troops at Annapolis, Md. In June, 1861, he was made presi- dent of a board convened at Washington to for- mulate a general plan of naval operations. In September of the same year he was appointed flag- officer; in October sailed from Hampton Roads. "Va.. in command of the fleet destined for Port Royal, S.C. up to that time the largest naval force

ever commanded by an American officer, seventy- live vessels besides the transports for the troops under General Sherman. On November 7 he engaged and took the forts at Port Royal, skilfully saving his wooden ships from the enemy's fire by keeping them moving in an elliptic course. The battle gave the United States the finest harbor on the soutliern coast as a base for future operations and its effect politicall}' and morally was great both at home and abroad. He pursued his vic- tory, occupj-ing Tybee Island, which enabled the troops to take Fort Pulaski, the land and naval forces together destroying the batteries at Pert Royal ferry, his efforts resulting in the occupation of the network of sounds and interior water ways along the coast of Georgia and the eastern coast of Florida, the taking of St. Mary's, Fernandina, Jacksonville, and the recapture of Fort Clinch and of the fort of St. Augustine. He organized four- teen blockading stations, all entirely successful except the one at Charleston, where the space to be guarded was too great for the force available. He received the thanks of congress and was made rear-admiral. Early in 1863 for the purpose of testing the offensive capacity of the monitors (then first coming into use) he sent a fleet to attack Fort McAllister; the attack was unsuccessful, though the monitor Montauk destroyed the Con- federate steamer Xashville, and he reported to the navy department that " whatever degree of im- penetrabilitj' monitors might have, thei'e was no corresponding quality of destructiveness as against forts." On April 7, 1863, acting under orders from the navy department and against his own judgment (which was that military co-oper- ation was essential to success) he made a brilliant but vain attack upon Charleston in which his flag-ship, the Ironsides, escai:)ed being blowni to pieces bj- a torpedo only b}' the inabilitj^ of the Confederate electrician to fire the explosive. In June, when the iron-clad ram Atlanta steamed out of Savannah, he sent a force against her and she was captured by the monitor Weiliaick-en, under Capt. John Rodgers. He was relieved from his command July 5, 1863. During his professional life Admiral Du Pont to a marked degree fur- thered the improvement and development of the navy. He assisted at two revisions of the navy rules and regulations; was prominent on the naval retiring board of 1855; was a member of the board that drew up the plan for re-organizing the naval academy, and took part in reforming and expand- ing it later. He also served on the original board to examine lighthouses and the system of lighting the coasts which organized the jiermanent light- hou.se board, of which he was a member until 1857. In naval literature he wrote a number of articles, among them one on corporeal punisli- ment in the navy, and one on the use of floating