Farragut, David
Farragut, David (1801–1870), admiral in the U.S. Navy, Civil War.David Glasgow Farragut's Civil War promotions bear witness to his place in the first rank of naval heroes. Congress named him the first U.S. Navy rear admiral, vice admiral, and admiral.
Born in Tennessee in 1801, he grew up as the ward of Adm. David Dixon Porter. By age nine, he was a midshipman; by age twelve, Porter appointed him prize master to take a captured ship into port.
After the War of 1812, Farragut's career made slow progress through the peacetime navy's seniority system: lieutenant (1825), commander (1841), captain (1855), while working to establish the Mare Island Navy Yard in California.
He maintained a home in Norfolk, where he married, was widowed, remarried, and fathered a son, Loyall, who would be his wartime secretary and biographer. Faced with a choice of allegiance in 1861,...
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