Attacking Port Royal Sound and the Outer Banks
In order to make the blockade as effective as they could, the Northern navy would require harbors where it could station and supply ships. The navy already had Fortress Monroe in Chesapeake Bay at the southern tip of the peninsula between the York and the James rivers. But in hopes of cutting off more Southern cities and securing places of refuge for its ships, the navy looked to sanctuaries south.
A tempting prospect was the sheltered waters of Pamlico and Albemarle sounds off the North Carolina coast. In August 1861, the Union navy seized Hatteras Inlet, a passage from the Atlantic into Pamlico Sound, by bombarding two strongholds on either side for two days. The Confederates could not resist such a display of force, and the Northerners had a foothold on North Carolina's Outer Banks. If they could gain complete control of both these sounds, they could cut off the ports of New Bern and Beaufort — both with rail facilities — and Plymouth and Elizabeth City. The Union navy began to plan an expedition that would expand its reach beyond Hatteras Inlet to the sounds themselves.
General Joseph E. Johnston moved his Confederate troops by railroad to Manassas Junction for the First Battle of Manassas in July 1861. It was the first time in history that soldiers were transported to a battle via train.
Another objective was the good anchoring at Port Royal Sound bounded at the southern side by Hilton Head between the cities of Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina. In November, Captain Samuel Du Pont headed a naval expedition of seventy-four ships to the sound. The Confederates were ready with prepared forts and more than forty guns, but the Union navy won gunfire duel and battered the protecting forts into submission.
