Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Adams, Henry A.

ADAMS, Henry A., Jr., naval officer, b. in Pennsylvania in 1833. He entered the naval school at Annapolis in 1849, and was graduated in 1851; became a passed midshipman in 1854, and a master the following year, when, while attached to the sloop of war “Levant,” he took part in the engagement with the forts at the mouth of Canton river, China. He was commissioned as lieutenant in 1856, and was on the “Brooklyn” at the passage of forts St. Philip and Jackson, and the capture of New Orleans in April, 1862. Commissioned as lieutenant-commander and transferred to the North Atlantic blockading squadron, he participated in both the attacks on Fort Fisher, and received the encomium from Admiral Porter in his official despatch of 28 Jan., 1865, “I recommend the promotion of Lieut.-Com. H. A. Adams, without whose aid we should have been brought to a standstill more than once. He volunteered for anything and everything.” After the taking of Richmond he was one of the party that accompanied President Lincoln on his entry into the city. He was commissioned as commander in July, 1866, and was ordered to the store-ship “Guard,” of the European squadron, where he remained during 1868-'9, and was afterward assigned to duty in 1870 in the navy-yard at Philadelphia.