Captain Percival Drayton, US Navy

Captain Percival Drayton, USN. Naval History and Heritage Command Photo

One of the captains commanding a US Navy monitor during Rear Admiral Du Pont's attack on Fort Sumter on April 7th, 1863 had been born in Charleston, a son of one of the most prominent extended families in the city.

Visitors to Charleston may seek the opportunity to visit the beautiful Georgian mansion "Drayton Hall" on the Ashley River some 15 miles above Charleston. Built between 1738 and 1742, Drayton Hall survived the American Civil War when most of the surrounding plantation homes were destroyed. Little modification and almost no concession towards modernity was made to the house through the mid-20th century. It is displayed without furniture, inviting the visitor to concentrate on the architecture and ornamentation of the house - and thereby encounter the stories of the people who built and lived and worked in and around the house.

When I was learning about the house and its people in my middle school studies of Charleston history, the survival of the home was usually credited to word getting out in 1865 that it was being used as a smallpox hospital, but something was mentioned about the house possibly being saved because a family member was in the Union Navy - but not much was said about that. This was still an era when good Charleston families didn't like to mention that they had a Yankee in the family.

Percival Drayton, US Navy, was a cousin of the Draytons who owned Drayton Hall in the 1860s. The home and extensive surrounding plantations had been sold by his grandfather to his grandfather's uncle in the 1770s. Percival Drayton had been born in Charleston in 1812, but his father had fallen out with many in Charleston due to the Nullification Crisis and had moved the family to Philadelphia. Percival Drayton had been appointed as a Midshipman in the United States Navy in 1827 and had served on a variety of postings including on the Brazil Squadron, Mediterranean Squadron, and Pacific Squadron. In 1861 he was stationed at the Philadelphia Navy Yard under Samuel Du Pont. With many southern officers resigning their commissions, Drayton wrote to Gideon Welles affirming his loyalty to the Union.

Drayton's first command was USS Pocahontas in which he took part in the expedition under Flag Officer Du Pont which captured Port Royal. During that battle, USS Pocahontas engaged Confederate batteries commanded by Brigadier General Thomas F. Drayton, a West Point classmate of Jefferson Davis who was also Percival Drayton's older brother. Thomas Drayton had been old enough to remain in South Carolina when the balance of his family moved north. Thomas's son, Lieutenant William Drayton was also with the Confederates ashore. It was a literal case of brother fighting brother (and nephew).

Percival Drayton would go on to command USS Pawnee in 1862 in operations on the Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina coasts.

In the autumn of 1862, he was ordered to take command of the monitor Passaic building in New York. The ship, as well as the rest of her class, had not been designed to carry the huge 15-Inch Dahlgren which had been fitted into their turret but could not fit through the gun port. Drayton was concerned about the fact that the monstrous cannon would be fired completely within the turret. The first discharge, using only 15 pounds of powder and no projectile completely filled the turret with smoke. The second, still using a small charge but this time with a projectile resulted in a fearsome concussion inside the turret. Following these trials John Ericsson designed a "smoke box" inside the turret which contained the muzzle of the 15-Inch gun, enabling the piece to be fired without greatly endangering its own crew. However, the smoke box meant that the 15-Inch could not be aimed along its own barrel. Sighting would have to be done along the 11-Inch beside it in the turret.

Ordered south alongside USS Monitor, USS Passaic was nearly lost in the same December 31st, 1862 storm which sank Monitor.

Drayton would command USS Passaic in the April 7th Attack on Fort Sumter.

Captain Percival Drayton also took part the 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay as captain of USS Hartford, Admiral Farragut's flagship.

Sadly, Percival Drayton would die suddenly in August of 1865.

His report on the Action of April 7th, 1863 describes vividly the experience in being in a monitor under heavy fire and some of the problems encountered. His report includes statements that:

~ His XI-Inch Dahlgren was put out of action after its fourth shot by two heavy hits upon the turret which bent the rails on which the carriage worked.

~ Another hit on the turret broke off a brass ring underneath the turret and jammed it - though this blockage was able to be cleared during the action.

~ "A very heavy rifle shot struck the upper edge of the turret, broke all of its eleven plates, and then glancing upward took the pilot house, yet with such force as to make an indentation of 2 1/2 inches, extending nearly the whole length of the shot."

~ "Several boltheads were knocked off and thrown into the pilot house and turret, and the former might have done serious injury to those inside had they not been stopped by a sheet-iron lining which I had placed there while at Port Royal."

~ "I was only able to fire four times from the XI-Inch and nine from the XV-Inch gun. There was some loss of time also from the necessity of using the sectional rammer, as the fire was all around and required the ports to be kept closed."

~ "On the account of the dense smoke I was not able to see the effect of my own shots."

~ "I was more than usually incommode by smoke during the action, owing, no doubt, to the difficulty of keeping the blower bands in working order with such an amount of water as has been for days pouring over them through the lower part of the turret - a most serious evil, and which I think calls for a remedy if the turret is to be kept in any but the smoothest water."

~ Drayton refers to "the great difficulty of managing these vessels and keeping them clear of each other and the bottom with limited power of vison which the holes in the pilot house afford."

(Official Records - Navy. Series 1. Volume 14. pp 9-11.)

Captain Percival Drayton would go on to serve as the Captain of USS Hartford under Admiral Farragut at the Battle of Mobile Bay.

See also: Barrett, Peter. Farragut’s Captain: Percival Drayton, 1861–1865. Lulu Publishing Services, 2018.

Drayton Hall in Winter, 2007 (Author’s Photo)

Library of Congress Photo captioned "USS Passaic". As Drayton's reports state, the ship was armed with a 15-Inch and an 11-Inch on April 7th, 1863. If this is Passaic, the photo dates from after the point that her 11-Inch was replaced with a 150-Pounder Parrott. Note the many dents in the armor from engagements against shore batteries.

Library of Congress Photo - this appears to be taken at the same time as the above photo showing the impacts upon the rear of the turret.

USS Hartford after the Battle of Mobile Bay. Admiral Farragut is standing between the wheels of the rifled boat howitzer and Captain Drayton just outside them. Naval History and Heritage Command Photo.

Captain Percival Drayton (left) and Admiral David Farragut (right) aboard USS Hartford - Naval History and Heritage Command Photo

Drayton Hall - Carol M. Highsmith's America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Website of Drayton Hall: https://draytonhall.org/

Map below shows the location of Drayton Hall in relation to Charleston, South Carolina