Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Samuel Francis DU PONT
Du Pont, Samuel Francis, naval officer, was born at Bergen Point, N.J., Sept. 27, 1803; son of Victor Marie Du Pont de Nemours and Gabrielle Josephine (de la Fite de Pelleport) Du Pont. He was appointed from Delaware a midshipman in the U.S. navy, Dec. 19, 1815, and was commissioned lieutenant, April 28, 1826, commander, Oct. 28, 1842, captain, Sept. 14, 1855, rear-admiral, July 16, 1862. His first ship was the Franklin in the European squadron, 1817, from which he was transferred to the Erie. In 1821 he was in the Mediterranean on the Constitution, was ordered home for examination, 1822, and went afterward to the West Indies and the coast of Brazil on the Congress. In 1824 he returned to the Mediterranean on the North Carolina, becoming her sailing master; four months of this cruise he served as lieutenant on the Porpoise. In 1829 he went on a three years' cruise to Europe on the Ontario. From 1835 to 1838 he was executive officer of the Warren and of the Constellation, 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, Commodore Hull's flag-ship. In 1842 he
sailed for China in command of the Perry, but was compelled by 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 commencement of the Mexican war. Transferred to the command of the Cyane July 23, 1846, he took Sen Diego and La Paz, spiked the guns of San Blas, and entered 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 defeated a large body of Mexicans near San Jose, Feb. 15, 1848, landing with a force of sailors and marines and relieving Lieutenant Heywood, who was hard pressed at the mission house 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 1857 on the
Minnesota he went to China, where he was an observer of the capture of the forts at the entrance of the Peiho by the French and English naval forces. He visited Japan, India and Arabia, and returned to Boston in May, 1859. Before the outbreak of the civil war he was put in command of the Philadelphia navy yard, Dec. 31, 1860, and when communication was interrupted with Washington, on his own responsibility he sent a force to cover the disembarkation of troops at Annapolis, Md. In June, 1861, he was made president of a board convened at Washington to formulate 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-five vessels besides the transports for the troops under General Sherman. On November 7 he engaged and took the forts at Port Royal, skillfully 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 southern coast as a base for future operations and its effect politically and morally was great both at home and abroad. He pursued his victory, occupying Tybee Island, which enabled the troops to take Fort Pulaski, the land and naval forces together
destroying the batteries at Port 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 fourteen 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 Confederate steamer Nashville, and he reported to the navy department that "whatever degree of impenetrability monitors might have, there 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 cooperation was essential to success) he made a brilliant but vain attack upon Charleston in which his flag-ship, the Ironsides, escaped being blown to pieces by a torpedo only by the inability 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 Weehawken, under Capt. John Rodgers. He was relieved from his command July 5, 1863. During his professional life Admiral Du Pont to a marked degree furthered 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 expanding it later. He also served on the original board to examine lighthouses and the system of lighting the coasts which organized the permanent lighthouse board, of which he was a member until 1857. In naval literature he wrote a number of articles, among them one on corporeal punishment in the navy, and one on the use of floating [p.343] batteries for coast defense, which was republished and is quoted from by Sir Howard Douglas in his authoritative "Treatise on Naval Gunnery." He married (1833) his cousin, Sophie Madeleine Du Pont, daughter of Eleuthére Irénée Du Pont de Nemours. "Du Pont Circle" in Washington was named for him (1382) and a bronze statue to his memory was erected there in 1884. Fort Du Pont, Delaware City, was named in his honor in 1899. He died at Philadelphia, Pa., June 23, 1865.
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