He was born on June 8, 1813 in Chester, Pennsylvania, United States, the third of the ten children of David Porter, and Evelina (Anderson) Porter.
At the age of ten he made a cruise with his father in the West Indies and three years later accompanied him to Mexico city where, after a brief period in school, he entered the Mexican navy as a midshipman.
His formal education was limited, not extending beyond the elementary studies.
He saw his first active service as an officer on board the Esmeralda, commanded by his cousin, David H. Porter, cruising off Key West and the Cuban coast in search of Spanish vessels. Later he participated in the desperate encounter between the Mexican ship Guerrero and the Spanish frigate Lealtad and was taken prisoner. After suffering confinement at Havana he returned home and on February 2, 1829, was appointed midshipman in the American navy, sailing in the same year on board the Constellation for the Mediterranean station. This service of two years was followed by a period of leave.
He spent two years in the Mediterranean, one of the most enjoyable cruises of his life. He was attached to the United States, the flagship of Commodore Daniel Todd Patterson. He was warranted passed midshipman in 1835 and in the following year was sent to the Coast Survey where he was employed for six years, either on the Atlantic Coast making hydrographic surveys or in Washington compiling field notes.
Promoted to the rank of lieutenant on February 27, 1841, he was ordered to the Congress in 1842, serving first in the Mediterranean and later on the coast of Brazil. His next duties on shore, similar to those of the Coast Survey, were performed at the Hydrographic Office in Washington. In 1846 these were interrupted for four months while he visited the Dominican Republic and acquired information respecting political, social, and economic conditions, then desired by the State Department. In July 1846, he applied for active service in the Mexican War and was given a mediocre appointment at New Orleans as recruiting officer.
He arrived at Vera Cruz with a detachment of recruits in February 1847, and was assigned to the steamer Spitfire as first lieutenant. In that capacity, he participated in the fruitless attack on the city with the Mosquito Division under the command of Josiah Tattnall. Later, at Tabasco, he commanded a landing party of seventy seamen, and in a spirited charge captured the fort. In recognition of this service he was made commander of the Spitfire, his first naval command.
After a few months at the Naval Observatory in Washington, he was once more ordered to the Coast Survey and was placed in command of the surveying vessel Petrel. As the navy offered little prospect for active service, he obtained command of the merchant steamer Panama in 1849 and made a voyage through the Straits of Magellan to the Pacific. On returning home he commanded the privately owned mail steamer Georgia and for two years made regular trips between New York and Havana and Chagres.
He entered the service of the Australian Steamship Company as captain of the Golden Age, which was one of the fastest steamers of her day and which plied between Melbourne and Sydney. In 1855 he returned to the navy as commander of the steamship Supply and made two voyages to the Mediterranean for camels which the army desired to use for pack animals in the Southwest. On his first voyage he found occasion to visit the Crimea and see something of the war in progress there. From 1857 to 1860 he was first lieutenant of the Portsmouth navy yard, having charge of various trivial improvements.
Disgusted with his prospects in the navy, he decided to take employment with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and, as a preliminary step, sought and obtained an assignment to duty on the Pacific Coast with the Coast Survey. He was in Washington in March 1861, preparing for this service. On April 1, a few hours before he planned to leave for California, he was chosen by Secretary of State Seward to command the Powhatan in a joint expedition which the Secretary was secretly preparing for the relief of Fort Pickens, Florida. Porter wrote his own orders and also an order to Secretary of the Navy Welles, notifying him that Samuel Barron was appointed chief of the Bureau of Detail, an office of great responsibility.
In August he was promoted to the rank of commander to date from April 22. Porter had a prominent part in the preliminary planning of the New Orleans expedition, and if his rank had permitted, he probably would have been chosen to command the expedition. He warmly recommended Farragut for the command and was chosen as the intermediary of the department in sounding out the future admiral. His idea that the main fleet should be accompanied by a mortar flotilla was not favored by Farragut, but since the plan was already well advanced, Farragut offered no further objection and Porter was chosen to command it. From April 18 to April 23, 1862, the flotilla kept up an almost continuous bombardment of the forts, St. Philip and Jackson, below New Orleans, firing with great accuracy and doing much damage, but giving convincing proof that they could not thus be reduced. On the 24th when Farragut ran past the forts, the flotilla effectively supported the movement by engaging the water batteries and Fort Jackson. On the 25th, Porter, who now commanded the fleet below the forts, demanded their surrender and was refused. On the 27th he again demanded the surrender of the forts offering very favorable terms, and on the following day they were accepted. The capitulation was drawn up and signed on board his flagship, the Harriet Lane. In June when Farragut's fleet ran past the batteries at Vicksburg, the mortar flotilla covered the movement and once more proved its value in such operations. Its commander, after receiving the commendation of Farragut, was detached from the squadron in July.
On October 9, 1862, Porter was chosen to succeed Charles Henry Davis as commander of the Mississippi Squadron, with the rank of acting rear admiral. On October 15, Porter relieved Davis at Cairo, where he remained two months organizing his squadron. The principal waters under his command consisted of the upper Mississippi north of the region of Vicksburg and the tributaries thereof, notably the Ohio, Cumberland, Tennessee, and Arkansas rivers. His tasks included keeping these waters open to transports carrying troops and to steamers carrying supplies for the army, and cooperating with the army in the reduction of Vicksburg.
In January 1863, he joined with the army in the capture of Arkansas Post, himself receiving the surrender of the fort, and for the bravery and skill displayed in making this capture as well as for his successful operations on the Mississippi, he was thanked by Congress. Several of his vessels passed the defenses at Vicksburg and gave a good account of themselves below that city. In the battle of Grand Gulf, fought in May 1863, they lost seventy-five men. In the same month Porter cooperated with Grant in his assault upon Vicksburg and during the siege that followed frequently engaged the Confederate batteries. After the surrender both Grant and Sherman expressed their appreciation of his services and he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral from July 4, the date of the surrender. He never held the rank of captain or commodore.
Later he took charge of the lower Mississippi as far down as New Orleans. He now divided his long line of waterways, more than three thousand miles in length, into eight districts and appointed a commander for each district. With a building yard at Cairo, in addition to a fleet of more than eighty vessels, it is apparent that his administrative tasks were of no mean order. In the spring of 1864 he commanded the naval force that cooperated with the army in the Red River expedition and when the movement failed he made an extraordinarily successful retreat down the river under circumstances that tested his reputation for energy, ingenuity, and courage. He organized his squadron, consisting of 120 vessels, into four divisions, corresponding to the four divisions of the waters under his command, extending northward from the North Carolina-South Carolina line to the region of the Rappahannock River, and including the sounds of North Carolina and the York and James rivers.
He bombarded Fort Fisher, but failed to capture it, not receiving, as he thought, proper support from the army. In January a second and stronger expedition was sent against the fort. The fleet consisted of more than sixty vessels, then the largest ever assembled under the flag of the United States. The army was commanded by Gen. Alfred Howe Terry. After three days of terrific bombardment the fort was taken by the assaulting troops and within a few days thereafter he captured the remaining defenses guarding Wilmington. He again received a message of appreciation from Congress for his victory, the only naval commander of the war to receive three times the thanks of his government.
During the war Porter had expressed a desire to command the Naval Academy and get the right set of officers into the Navy. He realized his ambition in August 1865, when he was chosen superintendent. His term of four years was epoch-making. By reason of his national fame he was able to obtain increased appropriations and to enlarge the physical plant of the academy. Determined to make the spirit, government, and instruction of the school predominantly "naval, " he substituted line for staff officers and gave himself three votes as a member of the Academic Board.
In 1866-67 his work at the academy was interrupted by an unsuccessful diplomatic mission to Santo Domingo, the object of which was to secure the cession or lease of Saman Bay. When Farragut was advanced to the grade of admiral in 1866, Porter was made vice-admiral from July 25. In March 1869, President Grant installed Porter in the navy department as the "adviser" of the secretary, Adolph Edward Borie, and for more than a year Porter virtually ran the department.
Long dissatisfied with the way in which the navy had been administered, he instituted a policy of reform and issued numerous general orders covering a wide range of subjects, some of which were rather "fanciful, " some "ill-timed. " and some "distinctly harmful". He organized boards to inspect the fleets and the navy yards and began the repair of numerous vessels, insisting that the steamers should be equipped with auxiliary sail power, one of his favorite notions. His exercise of authority aroused much opposition, especially among the staff officers who fared badly under him, and on the coming of a new secretary, his power and influence waned rapidly. On the death of Farragut, Porter succeeded him as admiral from August 15, 1870.
During the Virginius affair of 1873 the government once more sought Porter's active services and chose him to command the fleet assembled at Key West. Fortunately the difficulty was peacefully settled. From 1877 until his death he was the head of the Board of Inspection. For the last twenty years of his life his chief naval duties, the inspection of ships and navy yards, were relatively unimportant. He made annual reports to the secretary of the navy, in which he discussed freely and fully the lamentable condition of the fleet and vigorously insisted on the construction of a new navy.
He occupied his leisure with literary efforts which achieved results that he alone greatly admired. Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885) is his gossipy and amusing book. His Naval History of the Civil War (1886) is said by his biographer to be inaccurate in many particulars. His fiction like all his writings is verbose and amateurish. He never lost his zest for living and for many years his home in Washington, at 1718 H Street, was noted for its generous hospitality.
He died in Washington.
David Dixon Porter sucessfully served in the Mexican War in the attack on the fort at the City of Vera Cruz, led the U. S. Navy in the joint assaults on Fort Fisher, the final significant naval action of the American Civil War. He became the second man to hold the newly created rank of admiral. Besides, Porter worked to raise the standards of the U. S. Navy in the position of Superintendent of the Naval Academy when it was restored to Annapolis. He initiated reforms in the curriculum to increase professionalism. Porter's administration of the Navy Department aroused powerful opposition by some in Congress. His best historical writing is his Memoir of Commodore David Porter (1875). A memorial to Porter was installed at Vicksburg National Military Park.
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He was a man of action, restless, energetic, high-spirited, buoyant, and frank. He was generous to his subordinates, but critical of his superiors. Keenly intelligent in matters relating to a profession in which he was a natural leader, he was an amateur outside of it.
Quotes from others about the person
Matthew Calbraith Perry, his commander, commended him as a "brave and zealous officer".
He married George Ann Patterson on March 10, 1839, it was a happy union that lasted more than half a century. Porter had eight children. His five sons all became officers.
