Southern coast. We have seen already how Hatteras Island was
taken in '61, five weeks after Bull Run. Within another three
weeks Ship Island was also taken, to the great disadvantage of
the Gulf ports and the corresponding advantage of the Federal
fleet blockading them; for Ship Island commanded the coastwise
channels between Mobile and New Orleans, the two great scenes of
Farragut's success. Then, on the seventh of November, the day
that Grant began his triumphant career by dealing the
Confederates a shrewd strategic blow at Belmont in Missouri,
South Carolina suffered a worse defeat at Port Royal (where she
lost Forts Beauregard and Walker) than North Carolina had
suffered at Hatteras Island. Admiral S. F. Du Pont managed the
naval part of the Port Royal expedition with consummate skill,
especially the fine fleet action off Hilton Head against the
Southern ships and forts. He was ably seconded by General Thomas
West Sherman, commanding the troops.

North Carolina's turn soon came again, when she lost Roanoke
Island (and with it the command of Albemarle Sound) on February
8, 1862; and when she also had Pamlico Sound shut against her by
a joint expedition that struck down her defenses as far inland as
Newbern on the fourteenth of March. Then came the turn of
Georgia, where Fort Pulaski, the outpost of Savannah, fell to the
Federals on the eleventh of April. Within another month Florida
was even more hardly hit when the pressure of the Union fleet and
army on Virginia compelled the South to use. as reinforcements
the garrison that had held Pensacola since the beginning of the
war.

These were all severe blows to the Southern cause. But they were