Biography of Admiral David Farragut


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DAVID GLASCOE FARRAGUT, Admiral of the American navy, was born near Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1801; and at the age of eleven years entered the navy as midshipman, under Captain David Porter, in the Essex frigate. At the age of twenty-one, he was made lieutenant, and appointed to the Navy-yard; in 1833, he commanded the Natchez on the Brazil station, and in 1838, in the West Indies; in 1847, he was appointed to the sloop-of war Saratoga; in 1851, made assistant-inspector of Ordnance; in 1854, sent to construct a navy-yard in California; and in 1855, with the rank of captain, appointed to the steam-frigate Brooklyn, in the home squadron. In January, 1862, he was appointed to the command of a naval expedition to act against the Confederates in the Gulf of Mexico; and on April 24th, after a heavy cannonade, his squadron passed the forts at the mouth of the Mississippi, and on the 28th, he received the surrender of New Orleans. Ascending the Mississippi, he took Natchez; and aided by a fleet of gun boats, which had descended the river, made an attack on Vicksburg, which failed, and he withdrew to Pensacola, and operated against the coast of Texas. Raised to the rank of vice-admiral, in March, 1863, he once more passed up the Mississippi, successfully ran past the heavy Confederate batteries of Port Hudson, and aided General Grant in the combined attack on Vicksburg, which resulted in its capitulation, July 4th. In August, 1864, after a furious engagement between bis fleet and the Confederate forts and vessels at Mobile, he succeeded in capturing the forts which led to the fall of the city. In July 1866 the rank of admiral was created for him, and a purse of fitty thousand dollars was presented to him by the merchants of New York. He died at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, August 14th, 1870.