The Gunshoot at Bay Point
April 12, 1861
The Confederates fire on Fort Sumter. The Civil War begins.
April 14, 1861
Major Anderson surrenders Fort Sumter to General P. G. T Beauregard.
May 1861
General Beauregard assesses Confederate coastal defenses. He draws up plans for two fortifications at the entrance to Port Royal Sound.
July 1861
Construction of Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard begins at Port Royal Sound.
August 5, 1861
Union Captain Samuel DuPont receives orders to prepare an expedition to seize a harbor along the South Carolina coast. General Thomas W. Sherman will command an occupying force of 13,000 men.
October 17, 1861
Confederate General Thomas Drayton is assigned to the Third Military District of the Department of South Carolina. Forts Walker and Beauregard are under his jurisdiction.
October 29, 1861
A Union flotilla of 33 troop transports, 19 warships, and 25 coal and ammunition boats sails from Hampton Roads.
November 1, 1861
The Union flotilla runs into a hurricane-like gale off Cape Hatteras; several ships return to port, one gunboat jettisons her guns, and four ships are sunk or driven ashore.
November 3-6, 1861
The Union flotilla gathers at the entrance to Port Royal Sound.
November 7, 1861
Union gunboats fire on Fort Beauregard and Fort Walker in the early morning. The outmanned and outgunned Confederates surrender by mid-afternoon.
November 8, 1861
The Union Army occupies Hilton Head Island and uses the island as its headquarters for the US Army's Department of the South and the chief operational port for the Navy's South Atlantic Blockading Squadron.
December 8, 1861
Four hundred contrabands are living at the Union encampment.
June 1862
Contraband camps under the jurisdiction of the Quartermaster's department are established at Beaufort, Hilton Head Island, Bay Point, and Otter Island.
At the start of the Civil War, President Lincoln and his military commanders planned to blockade Southern ports to stop the flow of supplies from Europe to the Confederate states, and establish a series of bases from which to patrol the 3,500 miles of coastline that lay in Confederate territory.
At the same time, South Carolina Governor Francis Pickens directed General P. G. T. Beauregard, the new commander of South Carolina's provisional forces, to review the coastal defenses of the state. General Beauregard ordered the construction of Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard at the entrance to Port Royal Sound.
The Battle of Port Royal
In October 1861, a joint Army and Navy expedition under General Thomas Sherman and Captain Samuel DuPont set sail from Hampton Roads, Virginia. Port Royal Sound, South Carolina was the first target. By November 6, despite bad weather, a formidable flotilla of 25 ships sat at the entrance to Port Royal Sound.
The Confederates occupied newly constructed Fort Walker on Hilton Head Island and Fort Beauregard on Bay Point. Fort Walker was garrisoned by the 11th Regiment of SC Volunteers commanded by Colonel William C. Heyward. Fort Beauregard was commanded by Colonel R. G. M. Dunovant. Four ships under the command of Flag Officer Josiah Tatnall were positioned on Skull Creek.
The battle began on the morning of November 7, 1861. The Confederates were under-manned and out-gunned. The Union armada steamed passed the Confederate forts in an elliptical pattern firing directly into the batteries.
By 2:00 pm Confederate forces were defeated. Hilton Head Island, and later Beaufort and St. Helena Island fell to Union troops. Planters and their families abandoned the Sea Islands. Thousands of enslaved people escaped from bondage.
“Two o'clock had now arrived, when I noticed our men coming out of the fort, which they had bravely defended for 4 1/2 hours against fearful odds, and then only retiring when all but three of the guns on the water-front had been disabled, and only 500 pounds of powder in the magazine."
General Thomas Drayton, November 24, 1861
The Union Army's Department of the South
Hilton Head Island became the headquarters for the US Army's Department of the South and the chief operational port for the Navy's South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. The army built an inland line of defenses including Fort Sherman and Fort Welles, and an encampment with tent housing, Officers' quarters, Quartermaster's depot, guard house, commissaries, stables, blacksmith's shop, carpenter shop, bake house, and hospital.
“…The palisades and embankments, beginning at the ocean beach on the east, extended across marshes and the upland to [Fish Haul] creek on the west…The whole work was immense, elaborate, scientific, expensive, and strong."
Frederick Denison, 3rd Rhode Island Heavy Artillery Regiment, 1879
The town of Hilton Head with shops, post office, printing office, theatre, church, photographer's studio, and hotels sprang up adjacent to the post. The 3rd New Hampshire Volunteers camped on Thomas Drayton's Fish Haul Plantation. A detail from the regiment was directed to build a saw mill. Lumber from the mill was used to build storehouses, docks, and barracks for the African American refugees arriving daily at the Union lines.