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David Dixon Porter (June 8, 1813 – February 13, 1891) was a member of one of the most distinguished families in the history of the United States Navy. When he was 10 years old, his father, Commodore David Porter, took David Dixon aboard his ship, frigate John Adams, for a cruise and ordered his officers to submit his son to the discipline of a midshipman. For the remainder of his life, he was associated with the sea. He
served in the Mexican War in the attack on the fort at Vera Cruz. At
the outbreak of the Civil War, he formulated and participated in a plan
to hold Fort Pickens, near Penacola, Florida, for the Union; its
execution disrupted the simultaneous effort to relieve the garrison at
Fort Sumter, in the harbor at Charleston, South Carolina, and hence led
to the fall of that fort. He commanded a somewhat independent flotilla
of mortar boats at the capture of New Orleans.
Later, he was advanced to the rank of (acting) rear admiral in command
of the Mississippi River Squadron, which cooperated with the army under
Major General Ulysses S. Grant in the Vicksburg campaign. After the successful conclusion of that operation, he led the naval forces in the Red River campaign that
almost ended disastrously. Late in 1864, he was transferred from the
interior to the Atlantic coast, where he led the navy in the joint
assaults on Fort Fisher, the final significant naval action of the war. With
the return of peace, he became active in the effort to render the US
Navy respectable in comparison with the best of the world's navies. He
was appointed superintendent of the Naval Academy when it was restored
to Annapolis, and there he instituted reforms in the curriculum to instill principles
of professionalism. In the early days of the administration of President Grant, he was de facto secretary of the navy. When David G. Farragut was
advanced from rank of vice-admiral to admiral, Porter took his previous
position; likewise, when Farragut retired, Porter became the second man
to hold the rank of admiral. He gathered about himself a corps of
like-minded officers devoted to naval reform. Porter's administration
of the Navy Department aroused opposition in Congress, and soon
Secretary of the Navy Adolph E. Borie was forced to resign. His replacement, George Robeson, curtailed his power and eased him into semi-retirement. He died on February 13, 1891. David Dixon Porter was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, on
June 8, 1813, a son of David Porter and Evalina Anderson Porter. The
family had strong naval traditions; the elder Porter's father, also
named David, had been captain of a Massachusetts vessel in the American Revolutionary War,
as had his uncle Samuel. Both the second David Porter, David Dixon's
father, and his brother John entered the fledgling United States Navy
and served with distinction during the War of 1812. David eventually rose to the rank of captain,
the highest rank awarded in the US Navy prior to the Civil War.
Following the war, he was given increased responsibilities and gained
the courtesy title of Commodore. David
and Evalina Porter had 10 children, including six boys. The youngest,
Thomas, died of yellow fever at the age of ten. The other five all
became officers, four in the US Navy (William, David Dixon, Hambleton,
and Henry Ogden), and one, Theodoric, in the US Army. Hambleton died at
sea of yellow fever while yet a passed midshipman. Theodoric was killed
at Matamoros in the Mexican War; David Dixon later named his second son
Theodoric in memory of his brother. John Porter was not so prolific, but one of his sons, Fitz John Porter, was a major general in the US Army at the time of the Civil War, and a second, Bolton Porter, was lost with his ship USS Levant. Their
sister Anne, who married her cousin Alexander Porter, provided a son,
David Henry Porter, who was killed while captain of a Mexican ship
during that nation's struggle for independence from Spain. The
tradition continued into later generations. David Dixon married George
Ann ("Georgy") Patterson, daughter of Commodore Daniel T. Patterson. Of
their four sons, three had military careers. Major David Essex Porter
served in the army during the Civil War, but resigned after two years
in the peacetime army. Captain Theodoric Porter made his career in the
navy. Lieutenant Colonel Carlile Patterson Porter was an officer in the
US Marine Corps; his son, David Dixon Porter II,
also served in the Marines, rising to the rank of major general and
earning the Medal of Honor. One of their two surviving daughters,
Elizabeth, was married to Rear Admiral Leavitt Curtis Logan. Commodore
Porter also had an adoptive son who later was closely associated with
the career of David Dixon. In the early years of the nineteenth
century, the commodore was stationed at New Orleans, and his father
accompanied the family there in his declining years. There, the older
David Porter met and became friends with another former naval
participant in the Revolution, George Farragut. In
late spring 1808, David Porter Sr. suffered sunstroke, and Farragut
took him into his home, where Elizabeth Farragut cared for him. She
could not restore him to health, however (he was already weakened by
tuberculosis), and he died on June 22, 1808. Perhaps ironically,
Elizabeth Farragut died of yellow fever on the same day. Now
motherless, the Farragut children were scattered around into the homes
of friends and relatives. While he was visiting the family a short time
later to express appreciation for the kindness they had shown his
father and sympathy for the loss of their wife and mother, Commodore
Porter offered to take eight year old James Glasgow Farragut into his
own household. Young James readily agreed. Next year, he moved with
Porter to Washington, where he met Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton
and expressed his wish for a midshipman's appointment. Hamilton
promised that the appointment would be made as soon as he reached the
age of ten; as it happened, the commission came through on December 17,
1810, six months before the boy reached his tenth birthday. When James
went to sea soon after with his adoptive father, he changed his name
from James to David, and it is as David Glasgow Farragut that he is remembered. Commodore
David Porter was reprimanded by the navy for an 1824 incident that
humiliated an official of the Spanish government in Cuba. Although the
punishment was minimal, he decided to resign from the navy rather than
submit, and he then accepted an offer from the government of Mexico to
become their General of Marine – in effect, the commander of their
entire navy. Among
the several US citizens whom he took along to his new position were a
nephew, David Henry Porter, and two sons, David Dixon and Thomas. The
two boys were made midshipmen. Unfortunately, Thomas died of yellow
fever soon after arriving in Mexico; he was ten years of age. David
Dixon, age 12, was not affected by the disease. He was able to serve on
the frigate Libertad, where he saw little action, and on the captured merchantman Esmeralda for a raid on Spanish shipping in Cuban waters. In 1828, he was able to accompany his cousin, David Henry Porter, captain of the brig Guerrero, in another raid. Guerrero, mounting
22 guns, was one of the finest vessels in the small Mexican Navy. Off
the coast of Cuba on February 10, 1828, she encountered a flotilla of
about fifty schooners, convoyed by Spanish brigs Marte and Amalia. Captain
Porter elected to attack, and soon forced the flotilla to seek refuge
in the harbor at Mariel, 30 miles (48 km) west of Havana. The
noise of battle was heard in Havana, and there the 64-gun frigate Lealtad put to sea. Guerrero was
able to break off the action and escape, but overnight Captain Porter
rashly decided to circle back and attack the vessels still at Mariel.
Intercepted again by Lealtad, he
could not escape this time. In the course of the ensuing battle,
Midshipman Porter received his first (minor) wound, and Captain Porter
was killed, together with many of his crew. The survivors surrendered
and were imprisoned in Havana until they could be exchanged. Commodore
Porter chose not to risk his son again, and sent him back to the United
States by way of New Orleans. David
Dixon Porter obtained an official appointment as midshipman in the US
Navy through his grandfather, Congressman William Anderson. The
appointment was dated February 2, 1829, when he was sixteen years of
age; this was somewhat older than most midshipmen of the time. His
relative maturity and his experience, already greater than that of most
naval lieutenants, bred in him a certain cockiness and willingness to
challenge those above him. As a result, his warrant as a midshipman
would not have been renewed except for extraordinary intervention by
Commodore James Biddle, who acted favorably not because Porter deserved
it but because his father was a hero. Porter's last duty as a midshipman was on frigate USS United States, flagship of Commodore Daniel Patterson,
on a cruise that lasted from June 1832 until October 1834. The major
importance of the cruise for Porter was that Patterson's family
accompanied him. The family included his daughter, George Ann
("Georgy"), and the two young people renewed their acquaintance.
Although marriage would have to wait, the couple became engaged. After Porter returned home, he completed the examination for passed midshipman,
and soon after was assigned to duty in the Coast Survey. There, his pay
was such that he could save enough to marry. He and Georgy were united on March 10, 1839. In
March 1841, he was advanced in rank to lieutenant, and in April of the
next year he was detached from the Coast Survey. He had a brief tour of
duty in the Mediterranean, and then he was assigned to the US Navy's
Hydrographic Office.
In
1846, the era of peace was coming to a close. The United States had
annexed the Republic of Texas, and the islands of the Caribbean seemed
to be likely targets for further expansion. The Republic of Santo
Domingo (the present-day Dominican Republic) had broken off from the Republic of Haiti in
1844, and the United States State Department needed to determine the
new nation's social, political, and economic stability. The suitability
of the Bay of Samana for US Navy operations was also of interest. To
find out, Secretary of State James Buchanan asked
Porter to undertake a private investigation. He accepted the
assignment, and on March 15, 1846, he left home. He arrived in Santo
Domingo after some unexpected delays and spent two weeks mapping the
coastline. On May 19, he began a trek through the interior that left
him without communication for a month. On June 19, he emerged from the
jungle, bitten by insects, but with the information that the State
Department wanted. He then discovered that while he was away the United
States had gone to war with Mexico. Mexico
did not have a real navy, so naval personnel had little opportunity for
distinction. Porter served as first lieutenant of the sidewheel gunboat USS Spitfire under Commander Josiah Tattnall. Spitfire was at Vera Cruz when General Winfield Scott led
the amphibious assault on the city, which was shielded by a series of
forts and the ancient Castle of San Juan de Ulloa. Porter had spent
many hours exploring the castle when he had been a midshipman in the
Mexican Navy, so he was familiar with both its strengths and its
weaknesses. He submitted a plan to attack it to Captain Tattnall.
Taking eight oarsmen and the ship's gig, he sounded out a channel on
the night of March 22–23, 1847, using the experience he had gained with
the Coast Survey. The next morning, Spitfire and
other vessels taking part in the bombardment followed the channel that
Porter had laid out and took up positions inside the harbor, where they
were able to pound the forts and castle. Doing so meant, however, that
they had to run by the forts, which was contrary to the orders of
Commodore Matthew C. Perry.
Perry sent signals ordering the vessels to break off the bombardment
and return, but Tattnall ordered his men not to look at the commodore's
signals. Not until a special messenger came with explicit orders to
retire did Maffitt cease firing. Perry appreciated the audacity shown
by his subordinates, but did not approve of the way they had
disregarded his orders. Henceforth, he kept Spitfire by his side. In
June, Perry mounted an expedition to capture the interior town of
Tabasco. Porter on his own led a charge of 68 sailors to capture the
fort defending the city. Perry rewarded him for his initiative by
making him captain of Spitfire. It was his first command. It brought him no advantages, however, as the naval part of the war was essentially over. In
Washington again following the war, Porter had little chance for
professional improvement and none for advancement. In order to gain
experience in handling steamships, he took leave of absence from the
Navy to command civilian ships. He insisted that his crews submit to
the methods of military discipline; his employers were noncommittal
about his methods, but they were impressed by the results. They asked
him to stay in Australia, but his health and the health of his eldest
daughter Georgianne persuaded him to return. Back in the United States,
he moved his family from Washington to New York in hope that the
climate would benefit his daughter, but she died shortly after the
move. His second daughter, Evalina ("Nina") also died in the interwar
period. Once again on active duty, he commanded the storeship USS Supply in a venture to bring camels to the United States. The project was promoted by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, who thought that the desert animals could be useful for the cavalry in the arid Southwest. Supply made two successful trips before Secretary Davis left office and the experiment was discontinued. In 1859, he received an attractive offer from the Pacific Mail Steamship Company to
be captain of a ship then under construction. The offer would be
effective when she was complete. He would have accepted, but he was
delayed in his departure. Before he could leave, war had broken out
again. The seceded states laid
claim to the national forts within their boundaries, but they did not
make good their claim to Fort Sumter in South Carolina and Forts
Pickens, Zachary Taylor, and Jefferson in Florida. They soon made it clear that they would use force if necessary to gain possession of Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens. President Abraham Lincoln resolved not to cede them without a fight. Secretary of State William H. Seward, Captain Montgomery C. Meigs of
the US Army, and Porter devised a plan for the relief of Fort Pickens.
The principal element of their plan required use of the steam frigate USS Powhatan,
which would be commanded by Porter and would carry reinforcements to
the fort from New York. Because no one was above suspicion in those
days, the plan had to be implemented in complete secrecy; not even
Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles was to be advised. Welles was in the meantime preparing an expedition for the relief of the garrison at Fort Sumter. As he was unaware that Powhatan would
not be available, he included it in his plans. When the other vessels
assigned to the effort showed up, the South Carolina troops at
Charleston began to bombard Fort Sumter, and the Civil War was on. The
relief expedition could only wait outside the harbor. The expedition
had little chance to be successful in any case; without the support of
the guns on Powhatan, it
was completely impotent. The only contribution made by the expedition
was to carry the soldiers who had defended Fort Sumter back to the
North following their surrender and parole. Lincoln
did not punish Seward for his part in the incident, so Welles felt that
he had no choice but to forgive Porter, whose culpability was less.
Later, he reasoned that it had at least a redeeming feature in that
Porter, whose loyalty had been suspect, was henceforth firmly attached
to the Union. As he wrote, In late 1861, the Navy Department began to develop plans to open the Mississippi River. The first move would be to capture New Orleans, Louisiana.
For this Porter, by this time advanced to rank of commander, was given
the responsibility of organizing a flotilla of some twenty mortar boats
that would participate in the reduction of the forts defending the city
from the south. The flotilla was a semi-autonomous part of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, which was to be commanded by Porter's adoptive brother Captain David G. Farragut. The
bombardment of Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip began on April 18,
1862. Porter had opined that two days of concentrated fire would be
enough to reduce the forts, but after five days they seemed as strong
as ever. The mortars were beginning to run low on ammunition. Farragut,
who put little reliance on the mortars anyway, made the decision to
bypass the forts on the night of April 24. The fleet successfully ran
past the forts; the mortars were left behind, but they bombarded the
forts during the passage in order to distract the enemy gunners. Once
the fleet was above the forts, nothing significant stood between them
and New Orleans; Farragut demanded the surrender of the city, and it
fell to his fleet on April 29. The forts were still between him and
Porter's mortar fleet, but when the latter again began to pummel Fort
Jackson, its garrison mutinied and forced its surrender. Fort St.
Philip had to follow suit. Surrender of the two forts was accepted by
Commander Porter on April 28. Following
orders from the Navy Department, Farragut took his fleet upstream to
capture other strongpoints on the river, with the aim of complete possession of the Mississippi. At Vicksburg, Mississippi, he
found that the bluffs were too high to be reached by the guns of his
fleet, so he ordered Porter to bring his mortar flotilla up. The
mortars suppressed the Rebel artillery well enough that Farragut's
ships could pass the batteries at Vicksburg and link up with a Union flotilla coming
down from the north. The city could not be taken, however, without
active participation by the army, which did not happen. On July 8, the
bombardment ceased when Porter was ordered to Hampton Roads to assist
in Major General George B. McClellan's Peninsula campaign. A few days later, Farragut followed, and the first attempt to take Vicksburg was over. In
the summer of 1862, shortly after Porter left Vicksburg, the US Navy
was extensively modified; among the features of the revised
organization were a set of officer ranks from ensign to rear admiral
that paralleled the ranks in the Army. Among the new ranks created were those of commodore and rear admiral. According
to the organization charts, the persons in command of the blockading
squadrons were to be rear admirals. Another part of the reorganization
transferred the Western gunboat flotilla from the army to the navy, and retitled it the Mississippi River Squadron.
The change of title implied that it was formally equivalent to the
other squadrons, so its commanding officer would likewise be a rear
admiral. The problem was that the commandant of the gunboat flotilla,
Flag Officer Charles H. Davis,
had not shown the initiative that the Navy Department wanted, so he had
to be removed. He was made rear admiral, but he was recalled to
Washington to serve as chief of the Bureau of Navigation. Most
of the men who could have replaced Davis were either less suitable or
were unavailable because of other assignments, so finally Secretary
Welles decided to appoint Porter to the position. He did this despite
some doubt. As he wrote in his Diary, Thus
Commander Porter became Acting Rear Admiral Porter without going
through the intermediate ranks of captain and commodore. He left
Washington for his new command on October 9 and arrived in Cairo, Illinois, on October 15. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton considered Porter "a gas bag . . . blowing his own trumpet and stealing credit which belongs to others." Historian John D. Winters, in his The Civil War in Louisiana,
describes Porter as having "possessed the qualities of abundant energy,
recklessness, resourcefulness, and fighting spirit needed for the
trying role ahead. Porter was assigned the task of aiding General John A. McClernand in
opening the upper Mississippi. The choice of McClernand, a volunteer
political general, pleased Porter because he felt that all West Point men were 'too self-sufficient, pedantic, and unpractical.'" Winters
also writes that Porter "revealed a weakness he was to display many
times: he belittled a superior officer [Charles H. Poor]. He often
heaped undue praise upon a subordinate, but rarely could find much to
admire in a superior." The
Army was showing renewed interest in opening the Mississippi River at
just this time, and Porter met two men who would have great influence
on the campaign. First was Major General William T. Sherman, a man of similar temperament to his own, with whom he immediately formed a particularly strong friendship. The other was Major General McClernand, whom he just as quickly came to dislike. Later they would be joined by Major General Ulysses S. Grant;
Grant and Porter became friends and worked together quite well, but it
was on a more strictly professional level than his relation with
Sherman. Close
cooperation between the Army and Navy was vital to the success of the
siege of Vicksburg. The most prominent contribution to the campaign was
the passage of the batteries at Vicksburg and Grand Gulf by a major
part of the Mississippi River Squadron. Grant had asked merely for a
few gunboats to shield his troops, but Porter persuaded him to use more
than half of his fleet. After nightfall on April 16, 1863, the fleet
moved past the batteries. Only one vessel was lost in the ensuing
firefight. Six nights later, a similar run past the batteries gave
Grant the transports he needed for crossing the river. Now
south of Vicksburg, Grant at first tried to attack the Rebels through
Grand Gulf, and requested Porter to eliminate the batteries there
before his troops would be sent across. On April 29, the gunboats spent
most of the day bombarding two Confederate forts. They succeeded in
silencing the lower of the two, but the upper fort remained. Grant
called off the assault and moved downstream to Bruinsburg, where he was
able to cross the river unopposed. Although
the fleet made no major offensive contributions to the campaign after
Grand Gulf, it remained important in its secondary role of keeping the
blockade against the city. When Vicksburg was besieged, the
encirclement was made complete by the Navy's control of the Mississippi
and Yazoo Rivers. When it finally fell on July 4, Grant was unstinting
in his praise of the assistance he had received from Porter and his men. For his contribution to the victory, Porter's appointment as "acting" rear admiral was made permanent, dated from July 4. After the opening of the Mississippi, the political general Nathaniel P. Banks,
who was in charge of army forces in Louisiana, brought pressure on the
Lincoln administration to mount a campaign across Louisiana and into
Texas along the line of the Red River. The ostensible purpose was to
extend Union control into Texas, but
Banks was influenced by numerous speculators to convert the campaign
into little more than a raid to seize cotton. Admiral Porter was not in
favor; he thought that the next objective of his fleet should be to
capture Mobile, but he received direct orders from Washington to
cooperate with Banks. After
considerable delays caused by Banks's attention to political rather
than military matters, the Red River expedition got under way in early
March 1864. From the start, navigation of the river presented as great
a problem for Porter and his fleet as did the Confederate army that
opposed them. The army under Banks and the navy under Porter did little
to cooperate, and instead often became rivals in a race to seize
cotton. The Rebel opposition under Major General Richard Taylor succeeded in keeping them apart by defeating Banks at a small place known as Pleasant Hills,
following which Banks gave up the expedition. From that time on,
Porter's primary task was to extricate his fleet. The task was made
difficult by falling water levels in the river, but he ultimately got
most out, with the help of heroic efforts by some of the soldiers who
stayed to protect the fleet. By late summer 1864, Wilmington, North Carolina was the only port open for running the blockade, and the Navy Department began to plan to close it. Its major defense was Fort Fisher, a massive structure at the New Inlet to the Cape Fear River. Secretary Welles believed that the head of the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Rear Admiral Samuel Phillips Lee,
was inadequate for the task, so he at first assigned Rear Admiral
Farragut to be Lee's replacement. Farragut was too ill to serve,
however, so Welles then decided to switch Lee with Porter: Lee would
command the Mississippi River Squadron, and Porter would come east and
prepare for the attack on Fort Fisher. The
planned attack on Fort Fisher required the cooperation of the army, and
the troops were taken from the Army of the James. It was expected that
Brigadier General Godfrey Weitzel would command, but Major General Benjamin F. Butler,
the commandant of the Army of the James, exercised one of the
prerogatives of his position to install himself as leader of the
expedition. Butler proposed that the fort could be flattened by
exploding a ship filled with gunpowder near it, and Porter accepted the
idea; if successful, the scheme would avoid a protracted siege or its
alternative, a frontal assault. Accordingly, the old steamer USS Louisiana was
packed with powder and blown up in the early morning of December 24,
1864. It had, however, no discernible effect on the fort. Butler
brought part of his troops ashore, but he was already convinced that it
was hopeless, so he removed his force before making an all-out assault. Porter,
enraged by Butler's timorousness, went to U. S. Grant and demanded that
Butler be removed. Grant agreed, and placed Major General Alfred H. Terry in
charge of a second assault on the fort. The second assault began on
January 13, 1865, with unopposed landings and bombardment of the fort
by the fleet. Porter imposed new methods of bombardment this time: each
ship was assigned a specific target, with intent to destroy the enemy's
guns rather than to knock down the walls. They were also to continue
firing after the men ashore started their assault; the ships would
shift their aim to points ahead of the advancing troops. The
bombardment continued for two more days, while Terry got his men into
position. On the 15th, frontal assaults on opposite faces by Terry's
soldiers on the land side and 2000 sailors and marines on the beach
vanquished the fort. This was the last significant naval operation of
the war.
The
US Navy was rapidly downsized at the end of the war, and Porter, like
most of his contemporaries, had no more ships to command. Some feared
that at sea he might provoke a foreign war, particularly with Great
Britain, because of what he saw as their support for the Confederacy.
To make use of his undeniable talents, Secretary Welles appointed him
superintendent of the Naval Academy in 1865. The academy at that time
did little to prepare men for the duties that were expected of them.
Porter resolved to change that; he determined to make the Academy the
rival of the Military Academy at West Point. The curriculum was revised
to reflect the reality of naval life, organized sports were encouraged,
discipline was enforced, and even social graces were taught. An honor
system was installed, "to send honorable men from this institution into
the Navy." To
be sure that his reforms would remain in place after his departure, he
brought to the faculty a group of like-minded men, mostly young
officers who had distinguished themselves in the war.
When Porter's friend Ulysses S. Grant became president in 1869, he appointed Philadelphia businessman Adolph E. Borie as
Secretary of the Navy. Borie had no knowledge of the navy and little
desire to learn, so he leaned on Porter for advice that the latter was
quite willing to give. In a short time, Borie came to defer to him even
on trivial routine matters. Porter used his influence with the
secretary to push through several policies to shape the navy as he
wanted it; in the process, he made a new set of enemies who either were
harmed by his actions or merely resented his blunt methods. Borie was
strongly criticized for his failure to control his subordinate, and
after three months he resigned. The new secretary, George Robeson, promptly curtailed Porter's powers. In
1866, the ranks of admiral and vice admiral were created in the US
Navy. Naval hero Farragut was named as the nation's first admiral, and
Porter became vice admiral at the same time. In 1871, Farragut died,
and it was expected that Porter would be promoted to fill the vacancy.
Eventually, he did become the second admiral, but it was after much
controversy that was provoked by his many enemies. Among them were
several very powerful politicians, including some of the political
generals he had contended with in the war. Despite
the prestige of the high rank, his eclipse continued. For the last
twenty years of his life, he had little to do with the operations of
the navy. He turned to writing, producing some histories that are of
doubtful reliability but provide insights into his own beliefs and
character. He also wrote some fiction of a sort that has not withstood
the test of time. After twenty years of semi-retirement, his health
began to give way. In the summer of 1890 he suffered a heart attack; he
survived but was clearly in decline. He died on the morning of February 13, 1891. |