The Shining Sea (9 page)

Porter was also occupied with navy business. He was appointed to sit on no less than four courts-martial, all concerned with the
Chesapeake-Leopard
affair of June 22, 1807. A raw nerve was struck in the American psyche when the 50-gun British warship
Leopard
—caught up in a dispute over impressment—unexpectedly fired three broadsides into the unprepared 36-gun
Chesapeake
, killing three men and wounding fifteen others.
Enormous animosity was aroused in America against Britain and might have precipitated a war if President Jefferson had not moved deftly to defuse the issue.

Commodore James Barron had been in charge of the
Chesapeake
at the time, and he was criticized for the unprepared state of his ship and for how he handled the situation generally. He hoped a court-martial would absolve him of blame. Commodore John Rodgers was president of the court, and after carefully examining the evidence, eleven officers found Barron guilty of failing “on the probability of an engagement, to clear his ship for action.” His sentence was a heavy one—suspension from the navy for five years without pay. Porter took an active part in the proceedings, asking more questions than any other officer, pressing Barron hard, and supporting the verdict.

On February 22, 1808, the courts-martial were over, and Porter turned to more pleasant business, traveling to Chester, Pennsylvania, where on March 10 he married seventeen-year-old Evelina Anderson (he was now twenty-eight). Although her family was eventually pleased with the match, at the moment they were uncertain about Porter. They thought Evelina could do much better. Two months earlier, when David went to Chester to ask for Evelina's hand, her brother Thomas had informed him—none too gently—that marriage was out of the question. Whereupon, Porter flew into a rage, shouting, “Sir, you are meddling in a matter that does not concern you. I came here about marrying your sister, I didn't come to marry you, and damn you if you don't leave the room I'll throw you out of the window.” Many years later, Porter's son, Admiral David Dixon Porter wrote, “Young Anderson, who had a strong sense of humor, often related this incident to show Captain Porter's rough way of wooing, which was, in fact, his impulsive manner of doing everything.”

Porter had already received orders to take command of the New Orleans naval station, and so only a week after the wedding, the young couple embarked on the long trip from Pennsylvania to Louisiana. It was to be their only honeymoon. The newlyweds arrived in New Orleans on June 17, 1808, and were happy that David's father was stationed there. In late 1807, so that he could be near his son, the navy had given the Revolutionary War hero a warrant as a sailing master and assigned him to the New Orleans naval station.

The elder Porter was good friends with a man who would become important to his son. George Farragut, fifty-two, and Porter were serving together in the navy's tiny New Orleans station and soon discovered they had a lot in common. Like Porter, Farragut had fought on the patriot side during the American Revolution, even though he was a native of Spanish Minorca. Farragut had been a privateer, and later became a member of the state navy of South Carolina, where he performed heroically during the battles of Charleston and Savannah. Later, he fought as a guerrilla with Francis Marion. After the Revolution, Farragut and his family settled in Tennessee. They remained there until March 1807, when he was appointed a sailing master in the United States Navy and sent to New Orleans, where his friend William Claiborne was governor of the Province of Louisiana.

But tragedy soon struck the Porters and the Farraguts. On a hot summer's day in 1808, Porter was fishing on Lake Pontchartrain when he collapsed from sunstroke. He would have died right there had Farragut not been fishing nearby. Quickly realizing what had happened, Farragut took Porter to his house, where his wife, Elizabeth, cared for him. Tragically, while she was nursing him, she contracted yellow fever and passed away on the same day that the elder Porter also died—June 22, 1808. Five days earlier, on June 17, Master Commandant David Porter Jr. had arrived to take command of the New Orleans Station. He was devastated by his father's death. To make matters worse, he soon contracted yellow fever himself, only narrowly avoiding the same fate as Elizabeth Farragut.

While recovering from the loss of his father and from the fever, Porter tried to assist George Farragut with the enormous task of caring for his five grief-stricken children. Farragut was a man of great inner strength, and he held together, but the burden of the children was beyond his capacity, and when Porter offered to take two of them and bring them up as his own, George reluctantly agreed. Thus, in February 1809, nine-year-old James Glasgow Farragut and one of his sisters became members of the Porter household.

Young Farragut would during the Civil War become the first admiral in American history and a great hero. But that was much later. At the moment, he had to move into the Porters' house, which he did with great reluctance. In time, he became, in essence, the Porters' son, although he
was never actually adopted. From the beginning of their relationship, David Porter treated Farragut as if he was his own child, and in recognition of that unselfish care, James later changed his name to David Glasgow Farragut.

In spite of his relationship with Porter, Farragut remained close to his father. They would spend many days together on Lake Pontchartrain, where young Farragut acquired an extensive knowledge of sailing and a love for life on the water. At the end of Porter's two-year tour in New Orleans, Farragut, in what must have been a heartrending decision for the boy and his father, remained with Porter, traveling with him back to Chester. Farragut's sister, who had also been a member of the Porters' household in New Orleans, stayed behind in the city with Porter's sister, Margaret.

Aside from the personal tragedies, Porter's time in New Orleans was exceptionally stressful. He was tasked with doing the near impossible: enforcing President Jefferson's embargo in an area swarming with smugglers, pirates, and corrupt politicians. And on top of that, he had to deal with General James Wilkinson, the military commander in Louisiana, who was as devious and dishonest an officer to ever wear the uniform.

Luckily, during his stay in Louisiana, Porter met someone whose friendship helped him over the roughest patches. Navy purser Samuel Hambleton became his closest friend and confidant and would later serve as his prize agent.

When Porter's tour was up, he and his family set sail for Green Bank, their great stone mansion on the Delaware River, arriving on August 3, 1810. They must have been overjoyed to see the old house. It would be the first opportunity they had to live in it. It would also be the first time young Farragut was separated from his father.

Being back in Chester in a comfortable mansion did not mean that Porter had lost his zest for action. Far from it. He wasn't home for long before he was writing to the secretary of the navy, Paul Hamilton, requesting promotion to captain and assignment to a frigate. He had to wait for his ship and his promotion, however. It was peacetime, and the navy was not expanding. He would not receive orders to take command of the
Essex
until August 1811, and he was not promoted to captain, a rank commensurate with his new position, until June 1812.

With war looming, Porter suggested to Secretary Hamilton that when fighting broke out, the
Essex
should be sent to the Pacific to harass British
whalers and merchantmen. Porter's request was ignored, however. When the War of 1812 actually began, he was ordered to join Commodore John Rodgers's squadron in New York. In pursuance of these orders, Porter brought the
Essex
into the city during the second week of June 1812, but she needed extensive repairs, and Rodgers decided not to wait for her, taking the rest of his squadron to sea on June 21, 1812. Porter was left on his own.

Commodore Rodgers, the navy's senior officer in command, had gathered nearly the entire serviceable American fleet (only five warships) for the first cruise of the war. His flagship was the 44-gun heavy frigate
President
. Commodore Stephen Decatur sailed with him, in command of the 44-gun
United States
. Rodgers's plan was to attack a huge convoy of British merchantmen (over a hundred) traveling from Jamaica to England. He never found the convoy, but he did succeed in drawing the British fleet at Halifax away from the coast of the United States in search of him. (His departure had been no secret.) This allowed 516 American merchant vessels then at sea to return safely to their home ports. They had no idea war had been declared, and would have been easy prey for the British fleet had it been waiting for them off Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and other major ports.

Unhappy to be stuck in port while the war he had been preparing himself for finally had begun, Porter was nearly frantic to get the
Essex
repaired and out to sea. Luckily, Captain Isaac Chauncey, with whom Porter had served in 1803 on the
New York,
was in charge of the New York Navy Yard. He had the
Essex
repaired and ready for action in a remarkable three weeks. Porter put to sea on July 3. As he stood out from Sandy Hook, he could not have been in a better mood. The previous day he had finally received notice of his appointment to captain, and since Commodore Rodgers had already left New York, Porter was on his own. He immediately went on the hunt and found plenty of action. The crew, which he had been training hard since first taking command, performed brilliantly. The greatest prize was, of course, the
Alert,
taken on August 13. But as we have seen, there were other triumphs, too, during this unusually productive cruise. In mid-September, the
Essex
arrived in Chester laden with laurels, her captain and crew filled with great expectations.

When Porter dropped anchor near his home in Chester on September 14, he expected to refurbish, resupply, and put right back to sea. He soon
learned that his victory over the
Alert
was the first of the war. That was great news, but the disparity in size between the two combatants made him continue to downplay his success and to crave more than ever a one-on-one battle with a frigate.

On October 6, while supplies were dribbling in, and Porter was hard at work on the
Essex
, he began receiving his orders. Instructions from Bainbridge described Porter's assignment in the commodore's three-ship squadron. The next day, he was given Bainbridge's plan for how they were going to rendezvous. On October 8 a letter from the secretary of the navy confirmed the arrangements. Porter could not help but be pleased that the president had finally settled on a new strategy for the navy, and that the
Essex
would play an important part. He preferred being on his own, of course, not having to share laurels and prize money, but joining Bainbridge was the next best thing.

Porter was also happy that Madison was finally using the navy for commerce raiding, instead of relying exclusively on privateers. Like most naval officers, he had no respect for privateers.
“I detest the idea of trusting to our privateers for the destruction of British commerce,” he wrote to Samuel Hambleton; “are we to become a nation of buccaneers, a nest of villains, a detestable set of pirates? When a general system of piracy is countenanced by our government, when the whole maritime defense of a nation consists of buccaneers, farewell national honor, farewell national pride! Then we sink to the level of the bashaw of Tripoli, and the emperor of Haiti.”

Porter did not anticipate that refurbishing the
Essex
would take very long, if supplies arrived from the Navy Department as quickly as he hoped. The ship needed a new suit of sails, the standing rigging replaced, and the bowsprit taken out and fished. She also needed as many supplies as she could hold, including double clothing for the crew, fresh fruits, vegetables, and lime juice to fight scurvy. Ammunition also had to be replenished and leftover gunpowder examined. It should have taken no more than two or three weeks to accomplish all of this, but since supplies were slow in coming, the work dragged on until the end of October. Part of the reason for the delay was that another warship, the eighteen-gun sloop of war
Wasp
, was being readied for sea in nearby Philadelphia at the same time that the
Essex
was.
Her skipper, Jacob Jones, needed supplies
as much as Porter did. Years of neglecting the navy were now taking their toll.
Porter feared that if he delayed much longer, a British blockade would trap him in the Delaware. “If we do not get out soon,” he wrote to Hambleton, “we shall all be kept in until winter, as the British force has been so much augmented.” Porter's recent run-in with the three enemy warships off the tail of Georges Bank had heightened his fears. He was convinced that Britain was making a determined effort to close all the principal American ports. He told the secretary of the navy that, having run into the three-ship squadron, the
Essex
was already
“cut off from New York and Rhode Island,” which is why he had put into the Delaware River.

He was so worried about being blockaded that even while repairs were still being made on the
Essex
, he sailed her down to the Delaware Capes looking for intelligence about the British fleet. His fears intensified when he spoke a merchantman who told him that an enemy squadron was nearby. Porter feared that if he didn't get to sea right away, he would be stuck in the Delaware for a long time.

His concern was unwarranted, however; he was in no immediate danger. The British had not even begun to mount their blockade of the American coast. After Porter's last cruise, he could have easily put into Boston, New York, or Newport. The enemy ships that the merchantman was warning him about actually constituted nearly the entire usable British fleet at Halifax, and it was searching for the American squadron commanded by Commodore John Rodgers, not patrolling off New York or Narragansett Bay. Britain would not have a blockade in place until the middle of 1813, and even then, it would be far from complete.