Percival Drayton Percival Drayton ( 25 August 1812 — 4 August 1865 ) was a career United States Navy officer who served during the American Civil War . He commanded naval forces against Confederate forts defended by his brother Thomas F . Drayton in the capture of Port Royal , South Carolina in 1861 . He died after the war in Washington , DC . Biography . Born in Charleston , South Carolina , Percival Drayton was the son of Anna Gadsden and William Drayton , a prominent lawyer and US Representative . He had an older brother Thomas F . Drayton . In 1833 the family relocated to Philadelphia , Pennsylvania following the Nullification Crisis , as William Drayton was a unionist . He was appointed as president of the Second Bank of the United States . Thomas , already grown , stayed in South Carolina . William Drayton was a descendant of what had been a large landholding family in South Carolina . In the 1770s , his father William Drayton Sr had sold his property in South Carolina to his uncle John Drayton , after being appointed in the 1770s as chief justice of the Province of East Florida . John Drayton ' s branch consolidated the holdings at Magnolia Plantation . After the American Revolutionary War , William Drayton , Sr . returned to South Carolina with his family and became prominent in its politics . Military career . Percival Drayton was appointed a Midshipman in the Navy in December 1827 and initially served in the south Atlantic on board the frigate . He attained the rank of Lieutenant in February 1838 and had assignments in the Mediterranean , Pacific , and Atlantic , as well as shore duty at the Naval Observatory in Washington , D . C . , and at the New York Navy Yard . Promoted to Commander in September 1855 , Drayton subsequently served as a staff officer during the Paraguay Expedition . At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 , he was stationed at the Philadelphia Navy Yard , where he directed the construction and renovation of ships for war service . In the fall of 1861 , Commander Drayton was placed in command of the gunboat ; he participated in the capture of Port Royal , South Carolina . His older brother Thomas F . Drayton , a graduate of West Point and classmate of Jefferson Davis , had resigned with the secession of South Carolina . He was a general of the Confederate army and commanded the forts destroyed in this engagement . Percival Drayton became commanding officer of the sloop of war and was active in inshore operations in the waters of South Carolina , Georgia and northern Florida through the summer of 1862 . He was promoted to Captain in July of that year . In September 1862 , he was given command of the ironclad , overseeing her outfitting and working with John Ericsson to improve elements of monitor design . Drayton commanded his ship in attacks on Forts McAllister and Sumter in March and April 1863 , experiences that reinforced his opinion concerning the limitations of the monitor type when fighting against well - defended fortifications . Captain Drayton ' s next assignment was as Superintendent of Ordnance at the New York Navy Yard . In December 1863 he began a year as Fleet Captain to the commander of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron , Rear Admiral David Glasgow Farragut . Also commanding the squadron flagship , the big sloop of war , he took part in the August 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay and the following operations within Mobile Bay . Appointed Chief of the Bureau of Navigation in late April 1865 , Drayton died of an obstructed bowel in Washington , D . C . , on 4 August 1865 . Namesakes . The U . S . Navy has named two destroyers in honor of Percival Drayton , including : " Drayton " ( Destroyer # 23 , later DD - 23 ) of 1910 - 1935 ; and of 1936 - 1946 .