David Dixon Porter
Washington, DC, July 2, 1869
D. D. Porter Offers Views of New Secretary of the Navy
ALS

DAVID DIXON PORTER, Autograph Letter Signed, to Stephen Decatur, July 2, 1869, Washington, D.C. On Navy Department stationery. 4 pp., 8" x 10". Expected folds; some toning and staining; bold ink signature.

?The new Secretary seems to be a very nice man and I do not think my relations with the navy will be changed at all in consequence of his coming in.?

When his friend Ulysses S. Grant became president in 1869, Vice Admiral Porter was able to change several policies in the Navy Department because Grant?s appointment as secretary, Philadelphia businessman Adolph E. Borie, had no knowledge of the navy and did not care to learn. Opponents in Congress criticized Borie for failing to control Porter, and Borie resigned after only three months in the position. His replacement, George M. Robeson (1829-1897), curtailed Porter?s powers, but Porter still planned to make reforms.

Robeson?s long tenure as Secretary of the Navy (1869-1877), second only to that of Gideon Welles in the nineteenth century, was marred by repeated allegations of corruption and bribery, though several Congressional investigations failed to discover wrongdoing by Robeson.

Excerpt
?I work so hard and have so many irons in the fire that I do not stop to think of hot weather.
?I have been making it hot enough for those people who want to rule the Navy and haven?t any right to.
?I suppose you have seen by the papers, that we have a new Secretary of the Navy. The staff immediately began putting on air thinking they were going to work him to suit themselves, particularly the Doctors. Dr. [Edwrd] Shippen who was supposed to be his most intimate friend called him ?George?! on the strength of which I had Horwitz moved out the first day the Secretary came in.
?The new Secretary seems to be a very nice man and I do not think my relations with the navy will be changed at all in consequence of his coming in.
?If they are it is his loss?not mine. We have things started pretty fairly and everybody seems to have dropped into place.
?If good discipline don?t prevail now it will be the fault of the officers of the navy themselves.
?I am putting every ship in commission now that I can lay hands on and full rigging everything so as to have sails instead of steam.
?I am going to get up a practice Squadron of seven or eight vessels and I have my eye on Jack Cooper to command one of them.?

David Dixon Porter (1813-1891) was born in Pennsylvania and began naval service at the age of ten as a midshipman on a ship commanded by his father, Commodore David Porter (1780-1843). He served in the Mexican Navy from 1824 to 1828, when his father was its overall commander. The younger Porter obtained a new appointment as midshipman in the US Navy in 1829, was promoted to lieutenant in 1841, and served in the Mexican War. After the war, he took a leave of absence to command civilian ships. When the Civil War began, Porter returned to active duty. He was promoted to commander and given charge of a flotilla of twenty mortar boats to be used against the forts guarding the entrance of the Mississippi River below New Orleans. They would be a part of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron commanded by Porter?s adoptive brother Captain David G. Farragut (1801-1870). In mid-1862, Porter was ordered to Hampton Roads to aid General George B. McClellan in his Peninsula Campaign. By October, he was back on the Mississippi River, now as Acting Rear Admiral in charge of the Mississippi River Squadron. He quickly became friends with General William T. Sherman and later with General Ulysses S. Grant and played a key role in the siege of Vicksburg. Late in the summer of 1864, Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles transferred Porter to command the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron and tasked him with closing the port of Wilmington, North Carolina, the last major port open to blockade runners. Cooperating with General Alfred H. Terry, Porter?s fleet successfully captured Fort Fisher, the Confederate fort protecting Wilmington, in January 1865. Porter toured the captured Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, with President Abraham Lincoln in April 1865. After the war, Porter served as superintendent of the US Naval Academy from 1865 to 1869, where he initiated reforms in the curriculum to increase professionalism. In 1866, he was promoted to vice admiral, and in 1870, he became the second full admiral in US history, behind his adoptive brother Farragut. He served as de facto Secretary of the Navy in the early days of the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant, but his administration led some Congressional leaders to force Secretary of the Navy Adolph E. Borie to resign after only a few months on the job. The new Secretary of the Navy George Robeson curtailed Porter?s authority and eased him into semi-retirement.

Stephen Decatur (1814-1876) was born in Newark, New Jersey, a nephew and namesake of the famous Commodore Stephen Decatur (1779-1820). The younger Decatur was appointed a midshipman in 1829 and commissioned a lieutenant in 1841. In 1848, he married Anna Rowell Philbrick (1821-1906), and they had six children. After taking a leave of absence in 1842 because of eye problems, he returned to naval duty in 1851 with service in the East Indies and New York. At the beginning of the Civil War, he was promoted to commander, the rank he held throughout the war. He was promoted to captain in 1867 and to commodore on the retired list in 1869.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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8" x 10"