D.C., and at the New York Navy Yard. Promoted to commander in September 1855, Drayton served as a staff officer during the Paraguay Expedition aboard the frigate . In 1859, he returned to the United States and was assigned as a member of the Board of Examiners to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. 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, 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. The Union forces captured Hilton Head, Beaufort and Parris Island and used them as a base to continue operations against Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina. 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 1862. In September 1862, he was given command of the ironclad . He oversaw her outfitting and worked with John Ericsson to improve elements of monitor design. In April 1863, Drayton commanded his ship as part of a nine ironclad attack on Forts McAllister and Sumter. The attack was unsuccessful and reinforced his opinion concerning the limitations of the monitor type ship for use against well-defended fortifications. 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. He commanded the squadron flagship, the big sloop-of-war and took part in the August 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay and the following operations within Mobile Bay. It was to Drayton that Farragut shouted his famous command, "Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!". He was 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