Philo Norton McGiffin was born on December 13, 1860 in Washington, Pennsylvania. His great-grandfather, who came from Scotland, fought in the Revolution. His father, Col. Norton McGiffin, served in the Mexican and Civil wars. His mother was Sarah Houston (Quail).
After preliminary schooling in Washington, Pa. , where he attended the Washington and Jefferson Academy, Philo McGiffin entered the United States Naval Academy in his seventeenth year. Here he distinguished himself not so much in scholarship as by the many escapades in which he was involved. He spent several months on the station ship Santee in punishment, and took five years to complete the four-year Academy course. On graduation in 1882 he was assigned to duty on the Hartford, the flagship of the Pacific Squadron. Two years later he was examined for the grade of past midshipman. It was a time when commissions in the service could be granted only as vacancies occurred. Thus, with many of his classmates, instead of being promoted, he was given an honorable discharge with a year's pay. He is said to have long treasured the hope that Congress might reinstate the naval cadets who had been denied commissions, but such an act was never passed.
In the spring of 1885 the Tongking affair in China induced him to go to the East. Applying in person to the viceroy Li Hung-Chang, he was given a commission in the Chinese navy. Upon the conclusion of peace with France, he was made professor of seamanship and gunnery at the Naval College in Tien-tsin. When four Chinese ironclads were ordered in England, he was sent to superintend their construction. Serving for ten years as naval constructor and during the same time as professor of gunnery and seamanship, he taught most of the Chinese officers that were destined to serve in the Sino-Japanese War. On the beginning of hostilities McGiffin was the executive and second in command on board the Chen Yuen, a seven-thousand-ton battleship, the sister ship of the Ting Yuen, flagship of Admiral Ting. In the decisive naval engagement fought off the Yalu River, September 17, 1894, the two Chinese battleships withstood the main Japanese squadron until the Japanese steamed away. "It was due to the Chen Yuen's skillful manoeuvers that the Chinese flagship did not suffer more, " wrote a Japanese. The Chinese captain of this ship having failed utterly in the crisis, everything devolved on McGiffin. Although the Chen Yuen was miserably equipped with ammunition and was on fire eight different times, he carried her through to safety. He was so severely wounded and burned, however, that he was left a physical and mental wreck. Resigning from the Chinese service he returned to America. For two years he lived in New York City, suffering in the extreme. In a state of intense nervous prostration, a victim of hallucinations, he was cared for by a life-long friend, Col. Robert M. Thompson, and sent to the Post Graduate Hospital. For a while he seemed much improved; then, eluding his attendants, he secured his revolvers and committed suicide.
McGiffin served in Chinese service as a naval advisor during the First Sino-Japanese War. Although primarily skilled as an instructor and administrator, he proved a talented tactician during the Battle of Yellow Sea as well as the first American to command a modern battleship in wartime. In addition to several works which discuss his actual exploits, McGiffin is memorialized in the comic novel The Return of Philo T. McGiffin, written by Naval Academy graduate David Poyer and published in 1983 by St. Martin's Press. The book tells of the misadventures of a namesake plebe, Philo T. McGiffin, during his first year at the Academy. The Hong Kong Maritime Museum displays a number of McGiffin’s personal belongings including: his uniform jacket from the Battle of the Yellow Sea , sword and porcelain collection. In 1947, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission installed a historical marker outside the Washington County Courthouse, noting the McGiffin's historic importance.
McGiffin was absolutely fearless, and when given the opportunity excelled in action; but he seems to have been impelled not so much by a spirit of patriotism or self-sacrifice as by a love of adventure. Richard Harding Davis, a boyhood friend, gave him a proper characterization by including him in his Real Soldiers of Fortune (1906).
