Short answers, pulled from the story.
The Battle of Port Royal took place on the 7th of November, 1861, making it one of the earliest amphibious operations of the American Civil War. The action began at 09:26 when Fort Walker fired the first shot at the approaching Union fleet.
Flag Officer Samuel F. Du Pont commanded the Union naval force at Port Royal. He led a fleet of 77 vessels and was later promoted to rear admiral in July 1862, becoming the second person to hold that rank in the U.S. Navy, after David G. Farragut.
Brigadier General Thomas W. Sherman's army was unable to land because the storm that battered the fleet during its journey destroyed the landing boats and much of the army's ammunition. Transport Ocean Express, carrying most of his heavy ordnance, did not arrive until after the battle ended.
Du Pont ordered his ships to sail in a continuous elliptical path, bombarding Fort Walker on one pass and Fort Beauregard on the other, rather than taking fixed positions. The tactic had recently been used successfully at the Battle of Hatteras Inlet and was proposed by Commander Charles Henry Davis, Du Pont's fleet captain.
Fort Walker's water battery had its traverses removed to fit more guns into the available space, leaving it exposed to enfilade fire. Commander Sylvanus W. Godon of the Mohican recognized this vulnerability and broke formation to exploit it, and other ships followed, concentrating fire on the exposed battery.
Total casualties on both sides came to fewer than 100. In the Confederate forts, 11 men were killed, 47 wounded, and 4 were missing. In the Union fleet, 8 were killed and 23 wounded, not counting the seven men lost when transport Governor sank in the storm before the battle.