Abstract
During the American Civil War (1861–65) a crisis in civil-military relations culminated in the U.S. Navy’s disastrous April 1863 attack by an all-ironclad fleet on the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. This article examines the serious differences between Union Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont and Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles and his assistant Gustavus Fox and sheds light on the relief of a senior military commander and on questionable decisions by key civilian leaders. While Welles and Fox—both highly competent administrators—do not emerge untarnished from this episode, Du Pont must take the lion’s share of the blame for the battle’s outcome.
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Cite this article
Kevin J. Weddle, “’The Fall of Satan’s Kingdom’: Civil-Military Relations and the Union Navy’s Attack on Charleston, April 1863,” The Journal of Military History 75, no. 2 (April 2011): 411–439.