DAVID DIXON PORTER 387 Even the English Army and Navy Gazette speaks of Admiral Farragut as the doughty admiral whose feats of arms place him at the head of his profes- sion, and certainly constitute him the first naval officer of the day, as far as actual reputation won by skill, courage, and hard fighting goes." DAVID DIXON PORTER (1814-1891) A MONG the coincidences of naval and military command in the war for the Union, the association of the names of Far- ragut and Porter, in the important series of operations on the Mississippi, has not es- caped attention. The former, as the reader has seen in the previous sketch, was introduced to the ser- vice in his childhood, under the care and pro- tection of Commodore David Porter, and boy as he was, fully shared the adventures and perils of his famous cruise in the Pacific. Nearly fifty years after that event, Captain Farragut, in command of the Department of the Gulf, entered the Mississippi in con- cert with the son of his old commander of the Essex, to vindicate the national honor by the restoration of New Orleans to the Union a service which was to prove the ability of both officers, and lead them to the highest rank known to the naval service of the United States. Looking into the future, Commodore Porter, the hero of the War of 181 2, would hardly have dreamt that the "boy midshipman, who had been introduced to him at New Orleans, would, with two of his own sons, at the end of half a century, receive the highest honors of their country, the reward of the most arduous and perilous services against a domestic foe on the Mississippi." Of these sons of Commodore Porter, thus distinguished in this field of duty, William D. Porter, the elder, on more than one occasion, in command of the gunboat Essex, recalled not merely the name of his father's vessel, but the cour- age and patriotism, the spirit and success which had given the old ship her repu- tation. The younger, David D. Porter, the subject of this notice, born in Phila- delphia, entered the navy as midshipman in the year 1829. His first cruise was in the Mediterranean, under Commodore Biddle, till 1831. After a year's leave
