Born in Charleston, South Carolina, Percival Drayton was the son of Anna Gadsden and William Drayton, a prominent lawyer and U.S. Representative. He had an older brother Thomas F. Drayton. In 1833 the family relocated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania following the Nullification Crisis, as William Drayton was a unionist. He was appointed as president of the Second Bank of the United States. Thomas, already grown, stayed in South Carolina. William Drayton was a descendant of what had been a large landholding family in South Carolina. In the 1770s, his father William Drayton, Sr. had sold his property in South Carolina to his uncle John Drayton, after being appointed in the 1770s as chief justice of the Province of East Florida. John Drayton's branch consolidated the holdings at Magnolia Plantation. After the American Revolutionary War, William Drayton, Sr. returned to South Carolina with his family and became prominent in its politics.
Military career
Percival Drayton was appointed a midshipmanin the Navy in December 1827 and initially served in the south Atlantic on board the frigate. He attained the rank of Lieutenant in February 1838 and had assignments in the Mediterranean, Pacific, and Atlantic, as well as shore duty at the Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., and at the New York Navy Yard. Promoted to Commander in September 1855, Drayton subsequently served as a staff officer during the Paraguay Expedition. At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, he was stationed at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, where he directed the construction and renovation of ships for war service. In the fall of 1861, Commander Drayton was placed in command of the gunboat ; he participated in the capture of Port Royal, South Carolina. His older brother Thomas F. Drayton, a graduate of West Point and classmate of Jefferson Davis, had resigned with the secession of South Carolina. He was a general of the Confederate army and commanded the forts destroyed in this engagement. Percival Drayton became commanding officer of the sloop of war and was active in inshore operations in the waters of South Carolina, Georgia and northern Florida through the summer of 1862. He was promoted to Captain in July of that year. In September 1862, he was given command of the ironclad, overseeing her outfitting and working with John Ericsson to improve elements of monitor design. Drayton commanded his ship in attacks on Forts McAllister and Sumter in March and April 1863, experiences that reinforced his opinion concerning the limitations of the monitor type when fighting against well-defended fortifications. Captain Drayton's next assignment was as Superintendent of Ordnance at the New York Navy Yard. In December 1863 he began a year as Fleet Captain to the commander of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, Rear Admiral David Glasgow Farragut. Also commanding the squadron flagship, the big sloop of war, he took part in the August 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay and the following operations within Mobile Bay. Appointed Chief of the Bureau of Navigation in late April 1865, Drayton died of an obstructed bowel in Washington, D.C., on 4 August 1865 and was interred at Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Namesakes
The U.S. Navy has named two destroyers in honor of Percival Drayton, including: Drayton of 1910-1935; and of 1936-1946.
