748 



PORTER, DAVID DIXON. 



In March, 1864, Rear-Admiral Porter was 

 ordered to co-oparate with Gen. Banks in an ex- 

 pedition up Red river to Shreveport. Gen. 

 Banks, having been defeated, was obliged to re- 

 tire to Grand Ecore, leaving Porter and his 

 vessels caught above the falls at Alexandria. 

 Prom this perilous situation they were rescued 

 by Col. Joseph Bailey, of the engineers, who 

 constructed a dam across the river above the 

 falls and enabled the fleet to escape. 



On Sept. 22, 1864, Porter was ordered to re- 

 .lieve Acting Rear- Admiral S. P. Lee, command- 

 ing the North Atlantic squadron, whose ground 

 of operation was between Cape Fear river and 

 Wilmington, N. C. Porter arrived off Fort 

 Fisher on Dec. 24, with 35 cruisers, 5 ironclads, 

 and a reserve of 19 vessels. Eight thousand 

 soldiers in transports, under command of Gen. B. 

 F. Butler, accompanied the fleet. Porter opened 

 fire on Fort Fisher on the day of his arrival, 

 and, as he says in his official report, " In one 

 hour and fiftee'n minutes after the first shot was 

 fired not a shot came from the fort. Two 

 magazines had been blown up by our shells and 

 the fort set on fire in several places, and such a 

 torrent of missiles was falling into and bursting 

 over it that it was impossible for any human be- 

 ing to stand it. Finding that the batteries 

 were silenced completely, I directed the ships to 

 keep up a moderate fire, in hope of attracting 

 the attention of the transports and bringing 

 them in." Gen. Butler, however, having ex- 

 amined the fort, thought it " substantially un- 

 injured as a defensive work by the naval fire," 

 and returned to Hampton Roads without mak- 

 ing an assault. The ships, thus deprived of 

 military co-operation which was necessary tor 

 the reduction of the work, went to Beaufort. N. C., 

 where Porter began preparations for another at- 

 tack, and wrote to Gen. Grant : " Send back the 

 same soldiers with another general, and we will 

 capture Fort Fisher." With this request Gen. 

 Grant complied. The troops, now under the 

 command of Gen. Alfred H. Terry, returned to 

 Fort Fisher, and were landed by the boats of the 

 fleet on Jan. 13, 1865, and the fleet again bom- 

 barded. On Jan. 15 the soldiers assaulted the 

 fort from the rear, and, aided by an attack of 

 the naval brigade on the sea-face and by the 

 heavy fire of the fleet, captured the fort after 

 seven hours of hard fighting. For his efforts on 

 this occasion Porter received the thanks of the 

 President and Congress and a vote of thanks 

 from the State Legislatures. This was the fourth 

 vote of thanks given him during the war. 



After the fall of Fisher, Porter proceeded, 

 with one monitor and all his light-draught gun- 

 boats, to the attack of Fort Anderson, a strong 

 work up Cape Fear river, which he reduced on 

 Feb. 18, 1865. He next directed his movements 

 to Fort Strong, a battery commanding the ob- 

 structions in the river. This work he soon 

 rendered harmless, and he then passed the ob- 

 structions without opposition. He appeared 

 with his fleet off Wilmington on Feb. 22, 1865, 

 and this closed the last Southern port to supplies 

 from abroad. 



Porter's next move was to City Point, where 

 he kept a portion of his fleet during the opera- 

 tions against Richmond. Rear- Admiral Semrnes, 

 of the Confederate fleet, hearing the fire of the 



gunboats at Dutch Gap, imagined the Federal 

 ships to be approaching in force, and destroyed 

 all his own vessels, with their equipment. 



After the fall of Richmond, Porter escorted 

 the President to that city with his light gun- 

 boats, having rendered the last important naval 

 service of the war. 



Porter returned to Washington to receive the 

 homage due to his achievements. It was well 

 for the country that he should have been in 

 the beginning of the war at the seat of Govern- 

 ment, to advise and assist in shaping the naval 

 policy. In all this he was closely associated 

 with Gustavus V. Fox. formerly an officer of the 

 navy, a man of great ability, who was one of 

 the assistant secretaries of the navy. /When 

 Porter was presented to Lincoln, with the re- 

 markable faculty the President possessed of 

 reading character, he took in the proportions of 

 the man, and through the terrible strife advised 

 with Porter in all matters pertaining to the 

 navy more than with any other officer. Long 

 before the outbreak of the war, when the mutter- 

 ings of the storm alone were heard, but daily 

 growing in strength until the strife seemed in- 

 evitable, the navy, with the exception of some of 

 Porter's seniors, hailed him as the coming man 

 who was to lead them to victory. He was 

 thoroughly equipped in all branches of his pro- 

 fession, a man of great energy and of an invin- 

 cible courage, and known to possess a large and 

 varied experience, such as is only to be acquired 

 in actual warfare, and the great results that he 

 accomplished show the transcendent qualities of 

 the man. 



For several years Porter was engaged on the 

 Coast Survey, and he thus acquired an experience 

 that proved to be of great value, which he turned 

 to good account during the civil war, when every 

 man in command had to be his own pilot. This 

 experience enabled him to take the vessels com- 

 posing Farragut's fleet over the bar of the Mis- 

 sissippi river, and to bring them to an anchor 

 in the river below the forts preparatory to the 



frand attack. Especially valuable was this 

 nowledge in carrying out his plan of attack on 

 Fort Fisher; every ship, in accordance with the 

 programme, moved into its berth, which was no 

 sooner taken up than fire was opened upon the 

 fort. This was Porter's crowning achievement, 

 and brought forth in the strongest light the 

 splendid qualities of a great naval captain. 

 He was gifted with singular prevision in plan- 

 ning enterprises of moment. No detail was in- 

 significant in his judgment. When the time 

 for action came, he found his vessels ready in 

 all respects to respond to his call. As an or- 

 ganizer he was unexcelled. In all of his opera- 

 tions every emergency was considered and pro- 

 vided for. It was in times of the gravest peril 

 that his qualities as a leader were most manifest, 

 and. cool, calm, and self-collected, he brought 

 victory from defeat and order from confusion. 



Porter was appointed Superintendent of the 

 Naval Academy, Sept 9, 1865, and retained 

 charge until 1869. He was commissioned vice- 

 admiral July 31, 1866 ; on a mission to Santo 

 Domingo in 1866 ; on special duty at the Navy 

 Department in 1869-'70 ; commissioned admiral 

 Aug. 15, 1870; on special duty at Washington 

 from 1870 until his death. 



