page_title: USS Pocahontas (1852)
section_title: Bombardment of Port Royal
hierarchical_section_title: USS Pocahontas (1852) / Rebuilt and renamed Pocahontas, 1860 / Bombardment of Port Royal
caption_attribution_description: English: Bombardment and Capture of Port Royal, South Carolina, 7 November 1861 Engraving published in "Harper's Weekly", July-December 1861 volume, pages 760-761. It depicts Federal warships, under Flag Officer Samuel F. DuPont, USN, bombarding Fort Beauregard (at right) and Fort Walker (at left). The Confederate squadron commanded by Commodore Josiah Tattnall is in the left center distance. Subjects identified below the image bottom are (from left): tug Mercury, Fort Walker, USS Wabash (DuPont's flagship), Screamer (?), USS Susquehanna, USS Huntsville, Commo. Tattnall, USS Bienville, USS Pembina, USS Seneca, USS Ottawa, USS Unadilla, USS Pawnee, USS Mohican, USS Isaac Smith, USS Curlew, USS Vandalia, USS Penguin, USS Pocahontas, USS Seminole, Fort Beauregard, USS R. B. Forbes and "Rebel Camp".
context_page_description: The first USS Pocahontas, a screw steamer built at Medford, Massachusetts in 1852 as City of Boston, and purchased by the Navy at Boston, Massachusetts on 20 March 1855, was the first United States Navy ship to be named for Pocahontas, the Algonquian wife of Virginia colonist John Rolfe. She was originally commissioned as USS Despatch – the second U.S. Navy ship of that name – on 17 January 1856, with Lieutenant T. M. Crossan in command, and was recommissioned and renamed in 1860, seeing action in the American Civil War. As Pocahontas, one of her junior officers was Alfred Thayer Mahan, who would later achieve international fame as a military writer and theorist of naval power.
context_section_description: Under the command of Percival Drayton, Pocahontas arrived at Port Royal, South Carolina, either after its defensive forts had been destroyed by other Union vessels or near the end of the battle; Drayton's brother Thomas was commanding Confederate troops on shore in a literal instance of the "brother against brother" phrase used to describe the American Civil War. At the battle, Pocahontas was apparently piloted into the anchored USS Seminole by its executive officer, a man who would later achieve international fame as a renowned naval theorist: Lt. Alfred Thayer Mahan.
  The joint Army-Navy task force captured Port Royal Sound on 7 November, winning for the Union what Du Pont called "the most important point to strike, and the most desirable to have first and to hold...." Port Royal, he continued, "alone admits the large ships – and gives us a naval position on the sea coast as our Army is holding across the Potomac." Subsequent Union naval operations along the Confederate coast fully substantiated Du Pont's appraisal of Port Royal's strategic value.
caption: Illustration of attack on Port Royal, South Carolina, 7 November 1861. Pocahontas is seen in the right foreground.
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