The scene is the House of Representatives on the afternoon of December 12, 1870. From time to time the routine discussions have been relieved by banter, more or less friendly. The gentleman from Massachusetts has indulged in his favorite prank of interrupting the speakers and as usual has provoked laughter at his own expense. When Mr. Logan is recognized by the Speaker, the gentleman from Massachusetts bristles to attention. Mr. Logan from landlubberly Illinois is interested in curtailing the expenses of the Navy. The late war has seen gigantic sums of money expended in his state on the creation of the vast inland navy, but peace has cut off the happy stream that has poured into Cairo and Mound City.
Mr. Logan’s bill (H.R. No. 2509) called for the abolition of the grades of admiral and vice admiral in the Navy. Admiral Farragut had died in August and President Grant had appointed Vice Admiral Porter to the office of admiral, subject to confirmation by the Senate. Benjamin F. Butler from Massachusetts was interested in Mr. Logan’s bill because he looked upon Vice Admiral Porter as his bitterest enemy. Porter’s spectacular success in the second attack on Fort Fisher had made Butler a laughing stock for having “turned tail” during the first attack.
Mr. Logan asserted that his only motive in introducing the bill was to curtail expenses. Few believed him. Mr. Hale, from the seaboard state of Maine, took the floor and argued for parity in the matter of rank between Army and Navy. Tecumseh Sherman—who after General Grant’s elevation to the Presidency had been made permanent General—held a high position and, Mr. Hale contended, it would be unfair to exclude the Navy from a corresponding position of honor. Mr. Scofield seconded Mr. Hale, and remarked that the recently published war-time letter of Admiral Porter’s ought not to influence the action of the House. Someone wanted “to know to which letter of Admiral Porter the gentleman refers.” (Laughter, and cries of “Excellent! Very good!”) The situation was colored by personal considerations.
On December 2, four days before Mr. Logan had introduced his bill, the New York Sun had exploded a bombshell of post-war controversy by publishing the letter Porter on January 24, 1865, had written to Secretary Welles about General Grant. The letter, written during the let-down after Fort Fisher, was a thoroughgoing castigation of Grant—written while Porter was under the impression that Grant had deliberately sent General Butler to co-operate in the first attack on Fort Fisher. A few days after it was written Grant had made a trip to Fort Fisher, the Butler fiasco had been explained, and since the war Grant had several times been Porter’s house guest. When Grant became President he had made Porter his unofficial Secretary of the Navy, and had given him his heartiest support in the post-Welles campaign to brighten the Navy. After Farragut’s death Grant had at once appointed Porter admiral.
The publication of the “Grant” letter to Welles had thrown Porter into a most awkward position. He had gone to the White House and explained. He had written a public letter denouncing his hasty action and retracting. But the large number of enemies Porter had created as a result of his reform activities in the Navy Department were mightily pleased by his present embarrassment.
Throughout the speeches of Logan, Hale, and Scofield, the members of the House wondered what Ben Butler would do. They expected fireworks. And General Butler did not disappoint them. General Butler obtained the floor and spoke as follows:
I desire to call the attention of members to this consideration: Whether it is worth while to have an Admiral in the Navy who one day maligns and the other day commends his co-commander. It has been said that the Congress of the United States should not take any notice of these letters written by Admiral Porter. I think they should. I can easily see why the President should not take any notice of them, for they are personal to him. But they are for the whole people to consider in determining this question. Is this the man to put in the place of the noble, brave, open-hearted, and fair-minded Farragut? Is this the man to put before the youth in your Naval School as an example for them to follow? Are we to be told that it is proper to promote a naval officer who at one moment praises his commanding general and the next moment maligns him; who one day writes a sycophantic letter to the Secretary of the Navy, to obtain promotion and place by abuse of the general then over him, and when that letter is made public turns around and abuses the poor Secretary, who is not in power, in order to gain the favor of the President who is in power? Is it for this that we promote men to the highest place in the Navy? Are you going to hold up before the country such a man as an example of the bold, frank, open-hearted sailor; as a suitable successor of him who so recently died, and who in his last moments said with trembling lips to his attendant, in substance: “Never raise over my body or carry before my coffin the gridiron flag which has been imposed upon me by the man who expects to become my successor.” As the friend and associate of Farragut, I must protest as well as I may, in the face of the country, against this man having that place, which should be kept sacred. I submit that the Congress of the United States should not step out of the way to tax the people for the purpose of conferring honor upon a man who has dishonored the President and dishonored the Navy,
No champion arose to refute the gentleman from Massachusetts, but the silence that fell after Butler’s remarks did not augur that those present in the House swallowed the General’s statements without question. If they were not sufficiently informed to refute the General’s references to Vice Admiral Porter, they were too well acquainted with the General’s tactics in the political arena to regard his charges seriously. Like the newspaper editors who reported the occurrence throughout the nation, they probably felt that General Butler had committed a disgraceful impropriety by bringing the name of the lately deceased Admiral Farragut into the discussion. Butler’s antics failed to defeat Porter’s confirmation on January 14,187b by a vote of 31-10; but his remarks were broadcast over the country, and the grotesque legend of bad feeling between Admiral Farragut and Admiral Porter grew as only a legend can.
Unfortunately, certain circumstances lent color to General Butler’s legend. Farragut’s last days had not been happy. The duties of the Admiral were not clearly defined and Farragut had not the sort of political ingenuity necessary to get them defined. When the Vice Admiral acted as unofficial Secretary of the Navy, the unique situation obtained of a junior officer writing orders for the Admiral of the Navy himself! Farragut had been distressed by the change of uniform—preferred the old insignia of rank which he had worn during the war—and the Department (Porter) had permitted him to continue wearing his old uniform. He was not content with the new flag which the department had designed for him; and although Porter personally had had nothing to do with this change, his enemies awarded him the credit for making Farragut miserable. Ironically the circumstances surrounding Farragut’s death and obsequies had opened the ears of the public to such a spiel as Butler’s. Farragut had died on August 14,1870, at the home of his relative, Captain A. M. Pennock, in Portsmouth, N. H. His funeral had been a simple one, attended only by officers on the station, for Congress had specifically stated in its Naval Appropriations Bill for 1870 that no expenses were to be allowed for officers to attend the funeral of any officer dying in this country. The newspapers had raised a hue and cry against such parsimony, and the City of New York and the Loyal Legion (of which Farragut had been president) had raised funds for the elaborate pageant which took place on September 29, 1870. Torrents of rain had saddened this second ceremony in Farragut’s honor. When General Butler made his unscrupulous use of Farragut’s name in his efforts to spite Porter, the entire country read of it, as they read any human interest narrative concerning a popular hero. The general public did not read Captain Pennock’s private letter to Porter which denied that anyone at the Portsmouth Navy Yard had ever heard Farragut say anything like the “dying words” that General Butler attributed to him.
Had Congress in 1870 seen fit to investigate General Butler’s dramatic charge of bad feeling between Farragut and Porter it is doubtful whether they would have arrived at any approximation of the truth. In the atmosphere of post-war controversy facts were difficult to get at and more difficult to interpret. The present writer has had access to much material which has never before been considered by historians. He has found certain obscure allusions which he cannot fit into his own “jig-saw” picture; but he has found a sufficient quantity of evidence to form a coherent interpretation of the relations between Admirals Farragut and Porter, and it is the purpose of this article to present this interpretation.
At three points the war-time careers of the two Admirals came in contact: the New Orleans expedition, the first Vicksburg campaign, and the last Vicksburg campaign.
The expedition to New Orleans was not decided upon until the fall of 1861. The wooden ships that had established the blockade had found it impossible to seal the Mississippi from the outside stations and equally impractical—because of the Confederate iron-sheathed ram Manassas —to attempt to hold an inside position at the Head of the Passes. Moreover, New Orleans had lateral outlets through Barataria Bay and Lake Pontchartrain, so that the only effective way of blockading New Orleans was to capture and occupy it. Porter arrived in Washington early in November and presented a plan for bombarding Forts Jackson and St. Philip with mortars, while a fleet pushed by to New Orleans. Secretary Welles went with him to see the President, and when Lincoln heard that the plan called for only enough of an army to hold what the Navy captured, the expedition became at once a definite plan. Porter was given command of the Mortar Flotilla, which was yet to be assembled; “profound and impenetrable secrecy was enjoined upon all”; and Secretary Welles and Assistant Secretary Fox cast about to find a suitable commander for the fleet which was to run by the forts and capture the largest commercial city in the Southland. According to F. P. Blair, Fox’s brother-in-law with whom the Assistant Secretary was boarding at the time, Fox would have preferred Porter as flag officer, but Porter, who had just received his promotion to junior commander, had insufficient rank. Welles and Fox scrutinized every top name in the Navy list. Fox was instructed to ask Porter’s opinion—inasmuch as Porter was already in on the secret—and Porter told Fox that although Farragut was “not a Nelson or a Collingwood” he was the “best of his rank.” Porter was then instructed while in New York on business of the Mortar Flotilla to call on Farragut and sound him out. This Porter did, and a month later Farragut was called to Washington and given command of the expedition.
Farragut set sail the first week in February. In addition to the New Orleans campaign he was, as flag officer of the newly formed Western Gulf Blockading Squadron, charged with the blockade of the Gulf coast from St. Andrew’s Bay, Florida, to the Rio Grande. His force of steam vessels to run past the river forts was to be drawn in part from the ships already on blockade stations, and he was worried about ships to replace these. From Key West he wrote the department begging them to send him a force of light drafts. He was not a wordy writer, and in the present case he failed to make clear the purpose for which he wanted these light drafts: to seal the shallow bayous along the coast. The department conceived that he wanted them to pass the forts. Welles was much disturbed, and Fox was frantic.
Fox wrote to Porter on February 24, 1862.1
Dear Porter:
We have dispatches from your Flag, dated Key West, a cold shudder ran through me at the time. He wants a lot of four feet draft boats. This is not the time for such requests—There are no boats under 7 feet draft and they are good for nothing . . . and if he does the work laid out for him there will be no use for these frail boats such as he asks for, not one of which would get to the Gulf at this season of the year. I trust we have made no mistake in our man but his dispatches are very discouraging. It is not too late to rectify our mistake. You must frankly give me your views from Ship Island, for the cause of our country is above all personal considerations. A mistake here is fatal to everything and overwhelms the Navy and everybody connected with it in everlasting disgrace, write freely, and rapidly and believe me that I will not shrink from any responsibility to render success certain ... I shall have no peace until I hear from you.
Yours most truly,
G. V. Fox.
Porter’s answer to this letter (dated March 28, 1862) was reassuring in tone.2
Yours of the 24th has been received and I hasten to answer it... If as you suppose there is any want of the proper qualities in the Flag Officer it is too late now to rectify the mistake; but as yet I see no reason why he should not be competent to do all that is expected of him. I never thought Farragut a Nelson or a Collingwood; I only consider him the best of his rank and so consider him still; but men of his age in a seafaring life are not fit for the command of important enterprises, they lack the vigor of youth and the practice heretofore prevailing in our Navy of spending half of one’s life on shore, is not calculated to instruct men in all those matters which pertain to our profession. I will write you freely and candidly, for with you I think that all personal considerations should give way to the welfare of our country. . . .
Porter at this time was using his steamers (attached to the flotilla as tugs for the sail-driven mortar schooners) to drag Farragut’s heavy vessels over the bar into the river. The side-wheeler Mississippi and the Pensacola were both stuck in the mud. The mortar steamers were tugging at the Mississippi and dragging her inch by inch. With the captain of the Pensacola, Porter had had an altercation which inspired his remarks on the efficiency of elderly officers in general. After Porter had towed the Pensacola part of the way over, her captain had waved him aside and steaming ahead without tugs had rammed his vessel head and shoulders into the mud. Porter told Fox that these vessels should be commanded by young first lieutenants instead of old and talkative captains so near in rank to Farragut himself. “The rank is now so near alike that a Flag Officer has no force, and every old fogy out here is trying to play commander if left a day to himself.”
Farragut’s victory at New Orleans was far more than a victory over the Confederate defenses: it was a successful handling of a very difficult problem in personnel, and in a very real sense was a victory. Between the junior commander in command of the Mortar Flotilla (twenty schooners and seven steamers) and the senior captains in Farragut’s fleet there existed a quite natural jealousy. Because of his part in starting the expedition, and the essential part he was to play in bombarding the forts before and during the passage of Farragut’s fleet, and because his temperament leaned in that direction, the junior commander was disposed to “feel his oats.” Although under Farragut’s command, he was inclined to consider his flotilla a separate force. He wrote reports direct to the department (sending Farragut copies), but he never supplied Farragut with a list of his vessels and crews. He appointed his own officers (subject to approval by the department), and his arrangements for supplies were separate from Farragut’s. To augment the causes for rivalry Porter had a tremendous flair for uniformity in naval dress and for maintaining a bright shipshape appearance at all times. Farragut’s early experiences had given him a strong prejudice against an excessive stress on mere appearance, so long as his men accomplished their main objective.3
To handle the situation Farragut permitted Porter to use his own initiative, and to consider the Mortar Flotilla a separate force. When Secretary Welles wrote Farragut for a roster of the flotilla, Farragut directed Porter to send this information to the department. When the captain of the Pensacola (after the unfortunate solo attempt) asked Farragut to order Porter back to his assistance, Farragut did nothing of the kind. The captain was compelled himself to make this request of Porter; whereupon Porter “pocketed his disgust” and towed the Pensacola over the bar. Farragut was sometimes abrupt in his orders. After the Pensacola was brought through, he sent Porter word that he was ready and waiting for him. Waiting for him, indeed! Porter worked off his feelings in a private letter to Fox, who invited such effusions.
During the preliminary bombardment Porter had much to do, and this enabled Farragut to confer with him privately, and not bring Porter into the general conferences of officers which were frequently held aboard the flagship Hartford. This was unquestionably the wisest way to solve the difficulty. Porter felt to some extent “left out”; but Farragut always consulted him before he held a conference and Porter had no just grounds for ill- feeling, though he mentioned the circumstance once in a letter to Fox.
General Butler came into contact with Farragut and Porter early in April. Before leaving Boston the General had noticed that the price of hard coal was on the rise and had ballasted his transports with that article, so that when he arrived at Ship Island he was in a position to supply the Navy, whose coal supply was delayed on the long voyage around the coast. On April 8, Farragut wrote Porter:4
Dear Porter:
I made a bargain at your expense yesterday with General Butler, I spoke of our great want of coal—to which he replied that he had enough for some time, that if I would let the Jackson [mortar steamer] tow his ship down with troops, she had 100 tons of coal that we could have and that [as] soon as another vessel could arrive from the Island we could have 700 tons more—so I told him I knew you would have no objection to such a bargain and I directed the Jackson to tow her down, if the “Jackson” had not left Ship Island ... so that now we will have plenty of coal as soon as it gets over the Bar for all hands.
Very truly yours,
D. G. Farragut
If Porter was not in on the conferences aboard the Hartford, Farragut saw to it that he was always informed of what had been decided. If he couldn’t see him in person he wrote such familiar notes as the following, dated 9:00 p. m. April 22, 27 hours before the fleet ran the gauntlet,5
Dear Capt:
Capt. Smith of the Mississippi has just sent me word that his Carpenters, and entire gang, is absent in the Siota and does not wish to go without them—& as the enemy will use hot shot upon us, and cold ones also, that will, or make holes below the water line I do not wish to run so great a risk of his ship, & shall therefore wait for the Siota—I expect her up by 12 o’clock but she may not arrive in time for us to move—so I do not wish you to calculate on my early start as I proposed—I will send you word the moment she arrives.
Very truly yours,
D. G. Farragut
The surrender of Forts Jackson and St. Philip to Porter and the Mortar Flotilla infuriated General Butler, who by April 28 had picked up so many Confederate stragglers from these garrisons that he had come to look upon his army as in some way responsible. He at once started an anti-Porter agitation. Farragut remained completely outside of this feud.
After the forts had fallen Porter rejoined Farragut at New Orleans. The question now was whether to go up the river to join Davis’s fleet above Vicksburg or to proceed to Mobile, taking advantage of the “stampede” in the Confederate camp after the capture of New Orleans. The department’s orders to Farragut, written months earlier at the outset of the expedition, squinted in both of these directions. Porter, who at the outbreak of hostilities had participated in the relief of Fort Pickens opposite Pensacola and whom the Johnnie Rebels had “insulted” when he established the blockade off Mobile, was anxious to move on Mobile Bay at once, and Farragut agreed that Mobile was the next logical move. He therefore directed Porter to take the Mortar Flotilla to Ship Island and await his coming before risking an attack.
It appears from a letter to his family (written April 29, Loyall Farragut, p. 26) that Farragut intended to go immediately to Mobile; but other circumstances led him a few days later to modify this decision and attempt a quick thrust up river to join Davis.
Porter at Ship Island was considerably annoyed by Farragut’s delay. In a report he chafed at Farragut’s orders that he should wait till the main fleet appeared before attacking, “as it may prevent my getting hold of some fort. I think my discretion might be trusted.” A few days later, however, while substituting for the regular blockader off Mobile, Porter saw the fires of Pensacola Navy Yard, which the Confederates were abandoning, raced eastward, and helped ferry federal troops from Santa Rosa Island to the mainland to occupy the abandoned strongholds. Elated by his good fortune, he wrote Fox to delete his last unfortunate statement about the flag officer.6
I don’t think the remark exactly shipshape as a man should obey orders and say nothing about it—will you oblige me by cutting it out—in another part I say I “urged the Flag Officer to go up (past the forts) in the ships”—though this is so, it won’t do in a public dispatch to say so. It looks as if I was trying to make capital which I am not in the habit of doing—let Farragut have all the credit he can get. I wrote my report hurriedly and did not notice the impropriety of the remarks until after it had gone, and it was too late to correct it—tho Farragut has been pleased to consider me an “outsider” and has not deigned to invite me to bis public councils, I don’t want to do anything that may look like pique—privately he has been confidential enough, had he not been he would now be blockading the mouth of the Mississippi, I shall take more forts than he will, having helped the army today to resume possession of all the forts in this bay. I am delighted with the Octorara, she is the easiest sea boat I ever was in. I never enjoyed so much comfort “over the left.”
Porter’s jubilant boast that he would take more forts than Farragut provided Secretary Welles with another unfavorable adjective to add to his “diary” list of Porter’s “infirmities.” It is quite possible the Secretary did not know that Fox continually jockeying naval officers into friendly rivalry with one another.
Farragut had great difficulty getting his seagoing ships up to Vicksburg. About the middle of May he returned in the Hartford to New Orleans, and this information reached Washington via the Confederate telegraph and Richmond newspapers. The Confederates reported it as a general reheat, and censored the fact that Farragut bad left a considerable force in the immediate vicinity of Vicksburg. Secretary Welles became so much alarmed that he sent Farragut a dispatch in triplicate via three fast steamers, one of them especially chartered for the mission, ordering Farragut back to Vicksburg. This move, dictated by the military situation, was complied with by Farragut against his better judgment. From the outset the maneuver which called for sending seagoing ships 500 miles inland—at a season when the water was expected any day to fall off and maroon them all, and when so many vessels would be needed to convoy supplies through enemy territory that the far end of the line would be seriously weakened—was a discouraging, nerve- wearing task. Before it was finished it was to bring discord to Farragut’s council board and alienate men who had been lifelong friends.
Toward the end of May, Farragut received Mr. Welles’s peremptory orders to return to Vicksburg. He wrote Porter that General Butler had suggested trying the vertical fire of the mortars upon the hill batteries at Vicksburg and directed Porter to send into the river from six to ten mortars with enough steamers to tow them. General Butler, he wrote, “will supply tow vessels for as many as he can.” Porter set off at once for the Mississippi. Not knowing the situation he suspected that Farragut had been listening to poor council; he wrote that he was coming but hoped the flag officer would reconsider as Mobile was ripe for plucking and would now “fall like a mellow pear.” Farragut then informed Porter that the move was dictated from Washington.
Porter appeared off Pass a l’Outre with all twenty of his schooners, working on the principle that it was not good to send a boy on a man’s errand. He encountered difficulties getting towage. He hailed a tug and was told to apply to General Butler. Butler sent him to the quartermaster of Fort Massachusetts (lately “Jackson”) who ordered a tug-boat captain to his assistance. One of Farragut’s supply vessels lay off the Delta as Porter came through, and Porter ordered the tug first to tow the supply ship to New Orleans and then to return for the mortar schooners. The tug boat chugged down Pass a l’Outre. When it came back up it brought not the supply ship but two private trading vessels, whose commanders had bribed the tug captain. Much pleased with his windfall, the latter presented himself drunk at Butler’s headquarters in the St. Charles Hotel, whereupon General Butler instantly dismissed him.
The Butler-Porter feud, which had already been kindled, now arose in wrathy flames. Porter wrote Farragut that Butler was trifling with the Navy, that the Navy had made a slight error when it had turned over to the Army the tug boats it had captured. Farragut endorsed Porter’s letter and sent it to Welles as a sample of the troubles the Navy was having in the river. Welles referred it to Stanton, whence it got back to Butler, who, being a lawyer, took affidavits and accused Porter of lying—but that is another story.
By the third week in June, Porter had got most of his mortars to Vicksburg, though to do this he had been compelled to put his men on half rations. Supplies were scarce at New Orleans. The Confederates before retreating had cleaned the city of foodstuffs for their armies, and the food shortage in a measure justified General Butler’s extraordinary conduct of affairs in that city at the time Porter was passing through.
By June 20, when Porter arrived below Vicksburg with the advance line of mortar vessels, many elements subversive to morale had fixed their tentacles upon Farragut’s fleet. Food was short. Coal was running low. The river was falling. Several vessels were aground down the river. The weather was so hot and the men so unacclimated that most of the heavy work, at least in the Mortar Flotilla, was done at night, the men trying to snatch a few hours’ sleep in the heat of the day. The river mosquitoes inoculated everyone with malaria germs. Sick lists mounted daily. Worst of all, everyone from Farragut down believed the thrust past Vicksburg to be utterly useless. The Confederate batteries were daily becoming more formidable. The Vicksburg batteries were not so nicely concentrated as the New Orleans’ defenses had been, and Porter had to resort to the trial-and-error method of obtaining ranges. Moreover the bad feeling between certain of Farragut’s captains and the Mortar Flotilla had increased since the surrender of the forts to the flotilla. Newspaper accounts had tended to strain relations further. In a letter to his wife, Captain Craven of the Brooklyn scoffed at the New York Herald’s account of “Porter’s mortar boats and Butler’s expedition!” When the Mortar Flotilla arrived at Vicksburg, friction developed between Porter and Craven. The latter reported to Farragut that he didn’t wish to have any dealings with Porter, “for it is too evident that he does not like to receive instructions from myself”; and on June 22, Porter wrote Fox “I would be very much pleased if the Department would relieve me from this command or all connection with the Gulf Squadron. I have no reasons to assign, and am willing to serve anywhere else in a yawl boat.”7
At no time during the first attack on Vicksburg was Farragut’s health up to normal. In the middle of May when Farragut had returned to New Orleans ho had been quite ill. He was worried about the blockade in the Gulf. His sister, a widow living in Pascagoula, was appealing to him to relieve her famine-stricken neighbors. Farragut had a strong aversion to turning the Navy’s guns against women and children but he had been forced to retaliate against guerrillas by emptying several broadsides into Baton Rouge. His enormous amount of desk work overstrained his eyes, weakened since boyhood by a partial sunstroke. Loyall Farragut testifies that his father’s eyes pained him at this time, and Porter records in a letter to Fox that when he arrived at New Orleans, after the surrender of the forts, he found on Farragut’s desk a number of reports he had sent to him yet unopened.
Farragut’s written plan for the thrust past Vicksburg was not without ambiguity, for Craven, one of the oldest and most trusted of Farragut’s captains, conceived that the flag officer did not want the rear ships, of which Craven’s Brooklyn was one, to pass above Vicksburg if any of the batteries remained unsilenced. The flag officer’s unhappy difficulty in manipulating words had serious consequences. When the thrust was made on June 29, Craven with the rear ships of the line failed to pass Vicksburg. Porter’s steamers attacking the water batteries were disabled and their formation became confused. The Mortar steamers came under the Brooklyn’s line of fire; one shell from the Brooklyn burst off the port quarter of the Octorara (Porter) and a stand of grape was fired into the Clifton (Renshaw).
Until he learned what happened Farragut suffered agonies of anxiety. At this point in the story—while Farragut was writing Craven to find why he had not come up, and getting angry when he conceived Craven to be taking advantage of a misconstrued phrase; and while Craven was explaining and receiving Farragut’s letter of censure and asking to be relieved of his command—Farragut’s storeship arrived, and Porter sent Craven a requisition for food. Craven instead of supplying the flotilla sent the requisition to Farragut. Porter wrote angrily to Fox:
The weather is very hot here, and we of the mortar fleet are living on half rations, no flour served, no bread, no butter, no sugar, no molasses, and a store ship with all these necessities laying close alongside of us—But we are outsiders and not expected to eat—I have an infirmity of temper which never permits me to forget nor forgive, and the only pleasure I have is in knowing that a day of Reckoning will come.8
In his letter of censure Farragut wrote Craven that at the time when the Hartford was delaying for the Brooklyn to come up “the Mortar Flotilla were on our starboard quarter firing . . . (and they did it in handsome style, too), because they knew where the batteries were and we didn’t.” To Welles he wrote a letter praising Porter’s perseverance in getting up to Vicksburg and his steady work of demolition and annoyance to the enemy. “Porter’s service has been hard upon his officers and crews, though they have performed it well, willingly and unflinchingly.” Had there been the slightest degree of bad blood between the flag officer and the commander of the Mortar Flotilla, it would have cropped out at this time when the emotions of everyone were strained to the limits of endurance.
On July 9, Farragut received telegraphic orders to send Porter with the Octorara and twelve of the mortar schooners to the Potomac. Porter crossed the peninsula opposite Vicksburg and made arrangements for his departure on the morrow. For the last time the two men met as flag officer and subordinate. Their paths were destined to meet again in the course of the final campaign against Vicksburg, but the relations then would be that of rear admirals commanding separate squadrons.
Throughout the final campaign to open the Mississippi, Farragut and Porter cooperated harmoniously against their ingenious foe. Each man suffered reverses which must have been peculiarly vexing to the other, but throughout the whole of their association they appear to have regarded one another with brotherly affection.
As soon as Porter was sent west to relieve Davis as commander of the newly formed Mississippi Squadron, Renshaw, who commanded what remained of the Mortar Flotilla, requested Farragut to relieve him. He wanted duty under Porter. But Farragut had no one to take his place, for Renshaw and his force were now being used to capture the ports of Texas. The coastal towns in the fall of 1862 were easy to take but difficult to hold, and the federal strategy was at this time entirely too greedy. Farragut was compelled to spread his force out thinner and thinner in the hope that armies of occupation would come before the Confederates rallied to retake their lost strongholds. The hope was a forlorn one.
In December, Renshaw in charge of the blockade off Galveston heard rumors that the Confederates under General Magruder were preparing a surprise attack to open the blockade at this point. Renshaw’s armament was unequal to the reported strength of the enemy, especially since his single 100-pounder Parrott rifle had burst. Renshaw appealed to Farragut; but Farragut hadn’t a single Parrott rifle in his entire squadron to replace Renshaw’s loss. General Banks promised to send military support to Galveston, but he moved with fatal slowness. Renshaw grew frantic. In this situation Farragut adopted the worst possible method of dealing with Renshaw; he tried ridicule to jockey him into a better frame of mind. Renshaw wrote Porter a personal letter predicting disaster and flamboyantly abusing Farragut. The expected attack came on the first night of the new year. Galveston was retaken, Porter’s old flagship, the Harriet Lane, was boarded and captured; her commander, Wainwright, killed. The Westfield having grounded, Renshaw fired her magazines to avoid capture; it exploded prematurely and Renshaw (Porter’s close personal friend) was killed. Renshaw’s last letter reached Porter some time after the news of Galveston’s fall. It affected him deeply, but he transferred his anger to the Rebels at Vicksburg and not a line did he write at the time or afterwards condemning Farragut.
Farragut showed a similar magnanimity toward Porter in the arduous months of the final Vicksburg campaign. Farragut throughout this period (January-July, 1863) was co-operating with General Banks from New Orleans up the river, and Porter with Grant and Sherman from Memphis down. Vicksburg defied Porter and Grant, and Port Hudson blocked the northward advance of Farragut and Banks. So long as they held these strongholds, the Confederates could draw immense quantities of supplies from Louisiana and Texas. Meat, grain, and munitions that had been run through the Gulf blockade could pass freely down Red River and across the last segment of the Mississippi which remained under Confederate control.
During the first months of the year Porter made strenuous efforts to turn the right flank of Vicksburg. The levee was cut opposite Helena, Arkansas, and an expedition of gunboats and transports tried to force through the old Yazoo Pass into the headwaters of the Yazoo and effect a lodgment on the high ground to the east of the Yazoo Delta and in the rear of Vicksburg. The purpose of this expedition was partly to keep up the morale of the Army and Navy in the tedious months of waiting for the backwaters of Louisiana to subside—when the troops would be marched down on dry land and then ferried across the river below Vicksburg. But the Yazoo Pass expedition was blocked by the Confederates before it reached the Yazoo; and a second expedition under Porter and Sherman set out across the Delta by a southern route, to attempt to flank Vicksburg, but also to create a diversion in favor of the first expedition, whose capture appeared imminent.
During this time it was highly desirable to interrupt the eastward flow of supplies from Red River; but Porter was not yet ready to pass the Vicksburg batteries with his main units, the ironclad turtles; for once these heavy vessels got below Vicksburg they could not hope with their slow speed to beat their way back up against the 3-knot current. Porter, therefore, resorted to experimental moves.
Porter’s first experiment was to push past Vicksburg a pawn with the high sounding name Queen of the West. The Queen, an old river boat strengthened with timbers run lengthwise inside her hull, belonged to that romantic and insubordinate ram fleet organized early in 1862 by Colonel Charles Ellet, Jr. The Queen under one of the younger Ellets ran by Vicksburg in good style and destroyed Confederate shipping to the estimated value of $200,000. Porter was so pleased with her exploits that he at once sent down one of his newest ironclads, the Indianola. But unfortunately the Queen was now captured. With the Queen and a cotton-clad ram, the Webb, the hilarious Confederates caught the Indianola. Having superior maneuverability the Confederates kept clear of the Indianola’s heavy bow guns, rammed the ironclad from both sides again and again, and forced her to surrender.
It was this disaster which decided Farragut to push his fleet past Port Hudson and seal Red River. The attempt was gallantly made, but only the Hartford, with her “little chicken,” the Albatross, got by. The venerable side-wheeler Mississippi grounded under Port Hudson, where she was destroyed by fire; and the other ships in the rear fell back.
Farragut was now in a situation of great danger. He pushed on up to Vicksburg and was relieved to learn that a dummy monitor Porter had sent down the river in the wake of the Indianola had stampeded the Confederates and induced them to blow up the Indianola. Even so, the plight of the Hartford was as desperate as the Indianola's had been. It required great skill to navigate her in the treacherous river, and greater skill to maneuver her in battle against the swift-running Queen and Webb.
Farragut sent his secretary up the Louisiana shore to communicate with Porter, who was then absent with the second expedition in the woody swamps of Yazoo Delta. The secretary followed Sherman’s army and reached Porter at one of the unhappiest moments of Porter’s long and varied career. Porter’s gunboats had hung up in the willows of Deer Creek. Confederates had felled trees ahead of, and behind him; and only the timely arrival of Sherman had put an end to his desperate predicament.
To Farragut Porter wrote on March 22:
My dear Admiral:
I am too glad to receive a communication from you, for we have had all kinds of reports. Above all, though, I regret that . . . the loss of the Indianola should have been the cause of your present position. ... I will do all I can to send you coal, if I can get out of this creek, where I have been fighting for four days without eating or sleeping. ... I would not attempt to run the batteries at Vicksburg, if I were you. . . . Your services at Red River will be a Godsend; it is worth the loss of the Mississippi, and is at this moment the severest blow that could be struck at the South. They obtain all their supplies and ammunition in that way. . . . Do not, for God’s sake, let the rebels take you by boarding. They will try it, as sure as you are born . . . and now, my dear Admiral, I am so worn out that I must stop writing without saying half that I wish to. The sharpshooters are plugging away at us, and I have to sit down in a hot corner. General Sherman is driving the rebels before him, and I hope tonight to have a good sleep.
Yours very truly,
D. D. Porter.
This letter and the other Farragut- Porter correspondence from March 25 to 28 (included in Loyall Farragut) reveal the fine consideration the two admirals had for one another. When young Loyall Farragut on his way home from the Hartford was shown the hospitalities of Porter’s flagship, Porter reported:
Your son got over here safe, and I took him in. I expect he will give you an amusing account of my menage. The first evening he came, we had eight dogs in the cabin. I have to resort to all kinds of things for amusement. Loyall was quite at home on mush and cream and fresh butter, all of which we have in abundance. Kind regards to all friends, and believe me,
Yours truly and sincerely,
D. D. Porter.
After the fall of Vicksburg, Porter did not rush down river to participate in the final operations against Port Hudson. That was Farragut’s honor, and he was sportsman enough not to encumber Farragut with unnecessary assistance. Lest his motives be misunderstood, Porter explained them in a letter to Fox, dated August 16,
I thought it would be indelicate to go nearer to a place that was hanging by the eyelids, without consulting him, and wishing the old hero to have what credit was due him;
and in the same letter Porter expressed considerable indignation that the press should have eulogized General Banks and scarcely noticed the work which Farragut had accomplished. To Farragut, Porter wrote on July 16,
I should have been down to see you before this, but you know what it is (by this time) to attend on an army, nurse them through all their difficulties—look out for them when they are quite able to take care of themselves, put them to bed, and tuck them in, make heroes of them all, and leave them to think they did it all themselves....
The long and breezy epistle from which this excerpt is taken marks the divergence of the careers of the two most famous of Civil War admirals. A few weeks later Farragut turned over to Porter the control of the entire river down to New Orleans and returned north for a much needed rest. “I now take my leave for the North to make a short visit to my family,” reads Farragut’s farewell to Porter on this occasion, “I wish you may have a pleasant summer and a speedy end of your labors, and like myself, be able to take your departure for home.”
General Butler’s grotesque legend found wide currency in the early years of the Grant administration, for the simple reason that Porter had “reformed” the Navy Department “not wisely but too well.” In 1872 former Secretary Welles, whose pride was most grievously injured, published an article on Farragut and Porter in the Galaxy magazine which supported the legend. Porter turned pamphleteer in self-defense. In 1889 the Butler-Porter feud broke out afresh when both principals were in their dotage and ended only when they were in their graves. Even the sensational press finally wearied of the stale “kitchen shindee between the butler and the porter.” It was Porter’s tragedy that he “lived to wear his honors out,” that he could not like Farragut refrain from public controversy. That he was dead right, however, in his controversy with General Butler is the evidence of the war-time correspondence. The second admiral retained to the last a fine affection for the first man to occupy the highest post in the Navy.
One of the longest blockades in history was maintained by the North during the War of the Rebellion. It was 3,500 miles in extent, and extended down the Mississippi from Cairo, Ill., around the Gulf and up the Atlantic Coast as far as Fortress Monroe. Converted merchant ships were used extensively in maintaining the blockade.—Shorts about Ships
* This article was submitted in the Prize Essay Contest, 1935.
1. D. D. Porter Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
2. (Confidential Correspondence of Gustavus Vasa Fox, II p. 89 ff.)
3. Loyall Farragut, Life of Farragut, p. 119.
4. Porter Collection, Library of Congress.
5. Porter Collection, Library of Congress.
6. Fox, II, p. 100.
7. Porter Collection, Library of Congress
8. Fox, II, p. 124.