HIS STRATEGY BOARD, HAVING RECOMMENDED
seizure of a point on the Atlantic coast suitable for a coaling
depot and rendezvous for the blockading squadron, Gideon
Welles in late July presented the matter to Lincoln and the
Cabinet. ¹ The rout of Bull Run had just shaken the capital
to its foundations and the Government, yet jittery after the
debacle, approved Mr. Welles's plan for a positive strike down
the coast "upon the flank of the enemy." The War Depart-
ment appointed General Thomas West Sherman to lead the
military forces, and after many conferences Welles selected
Captain Du Pont, chairman of the strategy board, to com-
mand the naval contingent. To gain the maximum psycho-
logical advantage the point chosen for attack, Port Royal
Sound, lay in South Carolina, chief leader of Secession. Port
Royal Sound was a beautiful anchorage from one to three
miles wide and extending twenty miles inland. It washed the
shores of some of the wealthiest of the Sea Island plantations
and cut across the important protected waterway between
Savannah and Charleston at a point forty-five miles south-
west of Charleston and thirty northeast of Savannah. "The
importance of this expedition . . .," Welles on August 3 wrote
Du Pont, "cannot be overestimated." ² He ordered Du Pont
to proceed to New York as early as practicable, confer with
General Sherman, and lose no time in getting afloat.

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