David Porter

The title of this article is ambiguous. Further meanings are listed under David Porter (disambiguation) .

Commodore David Porter USN

David Porter (born February 1, 1780 in Boston , Massachusetts , †  March 3, 1843 in Pera, today Beyoğlu , İstanbul , Turkey ) was an American naval officer who was best known as the captain of the frigate USS Essex , which was in the war of 1812 inflicted heavy losses on the British whaling fleet on their two-year voyage in the Pacific. Commodore Porter was also the father of Civil War Admiral David Dixon Porter and the foster father of American national hero and first admiral in the United States Navy , David Farragut .

Life

David Porter was the son of naval officer David Porter senior (1754-1808), who had served as naval commander in the Revolutionary War, and Rebecca Henry (1755-1801). After accompanying his father at sea as a child, he became a midshipman on the Constitution in 1798 and a lieutenant in 1799. He served in the Caribbean and took part in the so-called half war against France (1799) and the war against Tripoli (1801-05). In 1803 his ship, the USS Philadelphia (Captain William Bainbridge ), was hijacked by pirates off the North African coast and Porter was taken prisoner of war, from which he was only released after the end of the war in 1805. On his return he commanded the USS Enterprise and later became the commander of the naval station in New Orleans , Louisiana , from where he fought mainly the French and Spanish privateers operating in the Mississippi Delta .

He had his greatest successes as captain of the famous frigate USS Essex in the war of 1812 . Porter, Captain since July 2nd of that year , and his crew of 300 captured several British ships, including the first British warship to be captured in the war, the 18-gun sloop HMS Alert (August 13, 1812). After an agreed meeting with the Constitution ( William Bainbridge ) and the USS Hornet off the Brazilian coast had failed, Porter sailed the Essex alone and on his own initiative around Cape Horn in the British-ruled Pacific in February 1813 , where he rounded a A dozen British merchants and whalers. He requisitioned part of it, manned them with freed American sailors and assembled them into a squadron under his command.

United States Frigate Essex, water color by Joseph Howard (1789–1857), detail

Captain Porter's successful raid against the armed whalers, most of whom were equipped with letters of piracy , brought British whaling in the Pacific, an important industry, to a virtual standstill. Porter himself put the damage to the British at two and a half million US dollars . In October 1813, Porter, who was cruising in the Galápagos Islands area , the central meeting point for British whalers, learned that a British squadron had been deployed from Rio de Janeiro under the command of Captain James Hillyar , RN , with the mission Hunt the Essex and put an end to the decimation of the British fleet.

Since the Essex was in need of an overhaul due to the stormy circumnavigation of the Cape and the meanwhile one and a half year stay at sea and a battle with the British warships, which were clearly superior in combat power and armament, Porter started looking for a safe base beyond the reach of the British naval association . After a three-thousand-mile passage in today's French Polynesia he took in November 1813 formally owned by Nuku Hiva , the largest of the Marquesas Islands , which he in honor of the then President of the United States , James Madison , "Madison Iceland" called , and built a station there, "Fort Madison" (today's "Fort Collet" ). However, this occupation was never ratified by Congress . Here the Essex was overtaken and, accompanied by her prize ships , set out again on December 12, 1813 for the neutral port of Valparaíso , Chile , which she reached around January 12, 1814.

In the bay of Valparaíso Porter's "Pacific Fleet" was tracked down in early February 1814 by the British frigate HMS Phoebe (36 guns, Captain James Hillyar ) and the Sloop Cherub (18 guns, Captain Thomas Tucker ) and locked in the harbor for six weeks. It is true that the Essex finally succeeded in breaking through the blockade and escaping to the open sea; but she lost her mainmast due to a hurricane gust and had to return to the coast. There she was attacked by British ships in violation of Chilean neutrality. Since the Essex was exposed to enemy fire because of the shorter range of her cannons, Porter tried as a last resort to beach his ship and escape over land, but was unsuccessful because of the offshore wind. After two and a half hours of unequal struggle, the Essex had to surrender to the superior British ships on March 28, 1814 .

Valparaíso map

Captain Porter and the survivors of his crew were initially captured, but were soon released on word of honor. Captain Hillyar, a longtime friend of Porter, had one of Porter's requisitioned prize ships, the Essex Junior , disarmed and sent her with the survivors on April 27, 1814 under the command of Lieutenant John Downes, who had led her since Porter's capture the Essex on board back to New York , where she arrived on July 7th. Two days earlier, on July 5, 1814, she had been stopped by a British warship whose captain refused to accept the validity of Hillyar's pass. Porter declared that he no longer felt bound by his word of honor through this act and fled in a dinghy, whose crew included his foster son, thirteen-year-old David Farragut . When he got home, he was received as a hero.

After the war, Porter became a member of the Board of Navy Commissioners (1815–1823) founded in 1815 and, as Commodore of the West India Squadron ( "Mosquito fleet" ) established in 1822, led an expedition against the privateers in the West Indies from 1823 to 1825 , during which he in November 1824 the representatives of the city of Fajardo , forced by military force, to apologize for the imprisonment of one of his officers (" Fajardo affair "). The American government disapproved of this measure. Porter was recalled, tried before a military tribunal, and suspended from duty for six months after a controversial trial that ruled the front pages of the news papers for months.

He resigned bitterly and in 1826 became Commander in Chief of the Mexican Navy, which he left in 1829 because of intrigues against him by Mexican officers.

After his return to the United States in 1830, he became American Consul General in the barbarian states with his seat in Algiers under President Jackson , who at the time was still a general . After the occupation of Algiers by the French, he was initially chargé d'affaires ( chargé d'affaires ) from 1831 and, from 1839 until his death, envoy to Constantinople .

Several US Navy warships were named after Commodore David Porter and his son, Admiral David Dixon Porter . His grave is in Woodlands Cemetery in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania .

Porter County , Indiana, is named after im .

family

David Porter was married to Evalina Anderson (1791–1871) of Chester , Pennsylvania , since March 10, 1808 . The marriage had ten children.

Worth mentioning are:

• William David Porter (1809–1864), naval officer, joined the navy in 1823, commanded the gunboat Essex on the Tennessee and Mississippi rivers during the Civil War , was Commodore in July 1862.
• David Dixon Porter (1813–1891), naval officer, commander in the Civil War and, as Farragut's successor, the second admiral in the US Navy
• Theodoric Henry Porter (1817–1846), army officer, was the first American officer to be killed in the Mexican-American War .
• Henry Ogden Porter (1828–1872), naval officer, left the Navy in 1847 after seven years of service, fought under William Walker in Central America, then returned to the Navy, was an officer on the Hatteras , which was sunk by the Alabama , and died seven years later on the consequences of the injuries received.
• Evelina Cora Porter (1828–1863), twin sister of the previous one, married Gwenn Harris Heap in 1842 , who was the American consul in Alexandria , Egypt , in 1856 , and there bought camels for the US Army for use in Texas .
• Hambleton Porter († 1844), naval officer, lieutenant on the Flirt , died at sea of ​​yellow fever.

adopted children:

• David Farragut (1801–1870), naval officer, was named a national hero and first admiral in the American Navy through his victories in the Civil War

Works

• David Porter: Journal of a cruise made to the Pacific Ocean, by Captain David Porter, in the United States Frigate Essex, in the years 1812, 1813, and 1814 . - Philadelphia: Bradford and Inskeep, 1815, New York : Wiley & Halstead, 1822 (Reprinted and edited by RD Madison. Annapolis : Naval Institute Press, 1986)
• ders .: Constantinople and its environs in a series of letters, exhibiting the actual state of the manners, customs, and habits of the Turks, Armenians, Jews, and Greeks . - New York: Harper, 1835

literature

• Robert Beale: A Report of the Trial of Commodore David Porter, of the Navy of the United States. Before a General Court Martial, Held at Washington, in July, 1825. To Which is Added, A Review of the Court's Decision. sn, Washington DC 1825.
• David D. Porter : Memoir of Commodore David Porter. Of the United States Navy. J. Munsell, Albany NY 1875.
• Archibald Douglas Turnbull: Commodore David Porter, 1780-1843. The Century Co., New York NY / London 1929.
• Richard Wheeler: In Pirate Waters. Captain David Porter USN and America's War on Piracy in the West Indies. Crowell, New York NY 1969.
• David F. Long: Nothing Too Daring. A Biography of Commodore David Porter, 1780-1843. United States Naval Institute, Annapolis MD 1970.
• Frances Diane Robotti, James Vescovi: The USS Essex and the Birth of the American Navy. Adams Media Corporation, Holbrook MA 1999, ISBN 1-580-62112-0 .

Web links

• Short biography and pictures on the website of the Naval Historical Center , Washington, engl.
• Description of the battle between the Essex and the British ships off Valparaiso from "William James: The Naval history of Great Britain . - London, 1824, engl.