Captain Percival Drayton, USN - NH 64912
“A country can recover from anything except dismemberment. I hope this war will be carried on until any party advocating so suicidal a course is crushed out.” - U.S. Capt. Percival Drayton
Drayton and his older brother Thomas were born into a wealthy Charleston family.
In a war of brother against brother, Percival stayed with the Union. His brother C.S. Gen. Thomas F. Drayton choose the Confederacy.
Before the War, the brothers met for the final time in Charleston, S.C.. They shook hands before going their separate ways.
Months later, Percival would return as the captain of the USS Pocahontas facing his brother commanding the troops defending the harbor during the Battle of Port Royal Sound, S.C. on November 7, 1861.
Percival wrote, “To think of my pitching in here right into such a nest of my relations ... is very hard but I cannot exactly see the difference between their fighting against me and I against them except that their cause is as unholy a one as the world has ever seen and mine is just the reverse.”
