Hilton Head Island

Fort Walker was a Confederate fort in what is now Port Royal Plantation. The fort was a station for Confederate troops and its cannonry helped protect the 2-mile (3 km) wide entrance to Port Hilton Head Island Lofty Sound, which is fed by two indolent moving and navigable rivers, the Broad Rill and the Beaufort River.

It was vital to the Bounding Main Island Cotton public and the southern economy. On October 29, 1861, the largest fleet ever assembled in North America moved South to seize it. In the Fray of Port Royal, the fort came under drive by the U.S. Navy, and on November 7, 1861, it fell to over 12,000 Union troops. The fort would be renamed Fort Welles, in honor of Gideon Welles, the Man Friday of the Navy.