PORTER, DAVID DIXON (1813-1891), American naval officer, son of Capt. David Porter, was born in Chester (Pa.), on June 8, 1813. His first voyage, with his father in West Indian waters (1823-24), was terminated by the Fajardo affair (see PORTER, DAVID). In April, 1826, he entered the Mexican navy, of which his father was commander-in-chief, and which he left in 1828, after the capture by the Spanish of the "Guerrero," on which he was serving under his cousin, David H. Porter (1804 28), who was killed before the ship's surrender. He became a midshipman in the U.S. Navy in 1829, and was in the coast sur vey (1836-42). In 1839 he married the daughter of Capt. Daniel Tod Patterson (1786-1839), then commandant of the Washington Navy Yard. Porter became a lieutenant in Feb., 1841; served at the naval observatory from 1845 to 1846, when he was sent to the Dominican Republic to report on conditions there. During the Mexican War he served as lieutenant and then as commanding of ficer of the "Spitfire," a paddle vessel built for river use, and took part in the bombardment of Vera Cruz. In 1855 and in 1856 he made trips to the Mediterranean to bring to the U.S. camels for Army use in the south-west. In April, 1861, he was assigned to the "Powhatan," and was sent under secret orders from the Presi dent for the relief of Ft. Pickens, Pensacola. Porter was promoted commander on April 22, and on May 3o was sent to blockade the South-west pass of the Mississippi. Upon his return to New York in November, he urged an expedition against New Orleans (q.v.), and recommended the appointment of Commander D. G. Farra gut (q.v.), his foster-brother, to the chief command.
In the expedition Porter himself commanded the mortar flo tilla, which, when Farragut's fleet passed the forts on the early morning of April 24, 1862, covered the passage by a terrific bom bardment that neutralized the fire of Ft. Jackson. At Vicksburg Porter's bombardment assisted Farragut to run past the forts (June 28). On July 9, Porter was ordered, with ten mortar boats, to the James river, where McClellan's army was concentrated. On Oct. 15 he took command of the gun-vessels and had a share in the capture of Arkansas Post (Jan. I 1, 1863). In the opera tions for the capture of Vicksburg in 1863 unsuccessful attempts were made by Porter's vessels to penetrate through connecting streams and bayous to the Yazoo river and reach the right rear of the Confederate defences on the bluffs, but the fleet ran past the Vicksburg batteries, mastered the Confederate forts at Grand Gulf, and made it possible for Grant's army to undertake the bril liant campaign which led to the fall of the place (see AMERICAN CIVIL WAR and VICKSBURG). Porter received the thanks of Con
gress for "opening the Mississippi river" and was promoted rear admiral. He co-operated with Maj.-Gen. N. P. Banks in the Red river expeditions in March-May 1864, in which his gun boats, held above Alexandria by shallow water and rapids, narrowly escaped isolation. On Oct. 12, 1864, he assumed command of the North Atlantic blockading squadron, then about to engage in a com bined military and naval expedition against Ft. Fisher, N.C. Por ter claimed that his guns silenced Ft. Fisher, but Maj.-Gen. B. F. Butler, in command of the land forces, refused to assault, assert ing that the fort was practically intact. After Butler's removal, Porter, co-operating with Maj.-Gen. Alfred H. Terry, and com manding the largest fleet assembled at any one point during the war, took the fort on Jan. 15, 1865; for this he again received the thanks of Congress. From 1865 to 1869 he was superintendent of the U.S. Naval academy at Annapolis, which he greatly improved; his most notable change being the introduction of athletics. On July 25 he became vice admiral. From March 9 to June 25, 1869, while Adolph E. Borie (1809-8o), of Pennsylvania, was secretary of the Navy in President Grant's cabinet, Porter was virtually in charge of the Navy department. In 1870 he succeeded Farragut in the grade of admiral. He died in Washington (D.C.), Feb. 13, 1891.
Porter wrote a Life of Commodore David Porter (1875), gos sipy Incidents and Anecdotes of the Civil War (1885), a none too accurate History of the Navy during the War of the Rebellion (1887), two novels, Allan Dare and Robert le Diable (1885; dramatized, 1887) and Harry Marline (1886), and a short "Ro mance of Gettysburg," published in The Criterion in 1903. See J. R. Soley, Admiral Porter Admiral Porter's three brothers were in the service of the United States: WILLIAM DAVID PORTER (1809-1864) commanded the "Essex" on the Tennessee and the Mississippi in the Civil War, and became commodore in July, 1862 ; THEODORIC HENRY PORTER (1817-1846) was the first officer of the American Army killed in the Mexican War; and HENRY OGDEN PORTER (1823 1872) resigned from the United States Navy in 1847, after seven years' service, fought under William Walker in Central America, returned to the American Navy, was executive officer of the "Hatteras" when she was sunk by the "Alabama," and received wounds in the action from the effects of which he died several years later.