David Glasgow Farragut: America’s First Admiral

Famous words from Adm. David Farragut. Public Domain

When Jordi Ferragut Mesquida sailed into the then-Spanish port of New Orleans in 1775, he was informed of the struggle between the British colonists and the British crown. Mesquida, a native of Menorca, Spain and a shipping merchant, did more than sympathize with the colonists, he joined them.

Mesquida changed his name to George Farragut and became the only Spanish volunteer to fight under the American flag. His efforts in providing arms to the patriots in South Carolina, and his efforts—on sea and on land—during the Battles of Charleston and Cowpens established him as a Revolutionary War hero.

After the war, Farragut settled down in Tennessee and started a family. One of his sons, James Glasgow Farragut (1801–1870), would become one of America’s greatest admirals. In fact, he would become the nation’s first.

David Glasgow Farragut

Young Farragut seemed destined to be a man of patriotic fervor. Born the day after America’s 25th anniversary, he practically grew up in the service of America’s navy. When Farragut was only 7, his mother died, and he was taken in by David Dixon Porter, a naval officer from Virginia.

Porter introduced the young boy to the Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton, and by December 1810 at the ripe age of 9, Farragut was appointed midshipman. Farragut showed his appreciation to Porter by requesting that his appointment be placed under the name David Glasgow Farragut (a request that would be officially fulfilled in 1814).

The following year, 1811, the boy with the new name and his first naval appointment began his service in the U.S. Navy aboard the frigate Essex, a ship commanded by Porter and made famous by its exploits during the Barbary Wars.

Bravery on Early Display

The frigate Essex. Public Domain

During the War of 1812, the Essex took many prizes (40 in all) while sailing in the Pacific along the South American coast. Among the prizes was the Alexander Barclay, taken on Farragut’s 12th birthday. Capt. Porter had captured so many prizes that he had run out of officers to sail them. He informed Farragut that he would be in charge of the newly recaptured American whaling ship, and he was to sail it to Valparaiso, Chile.

When the captain of the whaler decried this importunity and threatened to return from his cabin with pistols in hand, Farragut was stoic and had a messenger inform the understandably enraged seaman that if he did not comply with his command, he would be thrown overboard. The whaling skipper wisely complied, and Farragut sailed her safely to port.

The British, irritated at the Essex’s success, ordered two British warships, the Cherub and the Phoebe, to find her. The Essex was not hard to find. The neutrality of Chile waters, however, meant that a battle could only ensue if challenges were accepted, and Porter offered several times to engage the ships individually. The British consistently declined.

One day a squall hit the Essex, snapping her main topmast. Porter sailed her to a lagoon for repairs. The British ships, however, found her, and began, in a very unsporting manner, raking her from bow to stern for two and a half hours. Porter and his crew did all they could to defend the disabled Essex.

At one point during this lopsided battle, Farragut was running to fetch primers for the cannons when he was knocked down by a sailor who had just been blown over and decapitated by a cannonball. He quickly moved the body off of him. Porter yelled to him to ask if he was wounded.

“I don’t believe so, sir,” he responded.

In somewhat comedic fashion, Capt. Porter, with his hands on his hips and cannon fire all around him, yelled, “Well, then where are the primers?”

After the battle, of the Essex’s 214 crew members, 159 were either killed, mortally wounded, or missing (either knocked overboard or having willfully leapt overboard). Farragut was taken prisoner with the rest.

The bravery Farragut evoked was a direct reflection of his father and his adoptive father. His brave exploits in battle had only just begun.

Rising Through the Ranks

David Glasgow Farragut as he appears in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. Public Domain

Farragut, among others, was released as prisoner of war and arrived back in New York on July 7, 1814—two days after his 13th birthday. By spring the following year, he was aboard the Independence—America’s first ship of the line—cruising the Mediterranean. He remained there until 1820, when he joined what became known as the Mosquito Fleet in the West Indies. He served on these pirate hunters until 1823. That year, he was given command of his own ship.

After failing his first attempt at a lieutenancy in 1821, he passed in 1825. The year he received his lieutenancy, he received an even greater honor. He was chosen to join the 44-gun frigate Susquehanna, which was renamed to Brandywine in honor of its distinguished guest, Marquis de Lafayette, who had displayed exceptional courage during the Battle of Brandywine. Lafayette, the beloved French hero of the American Revolution, had recently completed his return visit to America and was now returning home.

Over the next two decades, Farragut was stationed in the Mediterranean, the South Atlantic, and in the Gulf of Mexico during the Mexican-American War where he saw minimal action.

When the war ended in 1848, Farragut spent the next decade dealing with executive matters, such as assisting the U.S. Navy drafting ordnance regulations and establishing a navy yard at Mare Island near San Francisco for which he was commandant from 1854 to 1859. It was also during this time, in 1855, that Farragut was promoted to captain—the Navy’s most senior rank at the time.

At the beginning of 1859, Farragut was given command as flag officer (a newly formed rank above captain) of the screw sloop-of-war Brooklyn, which enjoyed immense action during the Civil War.

Indeed, it was Farragut’s actions, as well as the words behind his actions during the Civil War that are most remembered about the naval commander.

Choosing the Union

When President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers three days after the April 12, 1861 bombardment of Fort Sumter in South Carolina, several of Farragut’s friends and fellow officers in Norfolk asked his opinion of Lincoln’s decision.

“What else should Lincoln do?” he replied. “Why, the government’s arsenals, navy yard at Pensacola, money in the mint at New Orleans, have been seized. Fort Sumter has been bombarded. Is it remarkable that the government of the United States should call for troops to sustain itself? Would Jackson have submitted to this? No, for I recall that I myself had the honor to be sent to South Carolina to support his mandate. This is not secession in the South; it is revolution—civil war. I have spent my life in revolutionary countries, and I know the horrors of civil war. And you may expect to experience what I have seen.”

Many of his fellow officers resigned or were planning to resign their commissions in favor of joining the Confederacy. When asked what he planned to do, he responded, “Gentlemen, I will see every man of you damned before I raise an arm against the flag.”

The Battle of New Orleans

By January 1862, Farragut became commander of the Western Gulf Blockading Squadron, which was responsible for the exorbitant task of blockading the American coastline from the Rio Grande to Pensacola with 17 warships and 20 mortar boats. He was soon ordered to “proceed up the Mississippi River and reduce the defenses which guard the approaches to New Orleans.” The defenses were in the form of Forts Jackson and St. Philip just downriver of the port city, as well as numerous Confederate gunboats, fire rafts, and an ironclad.

Aboard his flagship USS Hartford, Farragut prepared his attack. The attack began with a five-day bombardment of the forts by the mortar boat squadron. Interestingly, Cmdr. David Dixon Porter (Porter’s son and Farragut’s half-brother) led this initial attack. On April 24, Farragut gave the order for the rest of the fleet to attack. The Western Gulf Blockading Squadron blasted its way to victory, destroying more than a dozen Confederate naval vessels (to only one loss for Farragut) and silencing the fort guns. The following day, the Union fleet reached New Orleans. The Confederates attempted a futile defensive effort, but soon, as Farragut noted, “The forts were silenced, and those who could run were running in every direction.”

Farragut (L) on board USS Hartford. “The Photographic History of The Civil War in Ten Volumes: Volume Six, The Navies." The Review of Reviews Co., New York. 1911. Public Domain

According to the U.S. Naval Institute, “Only [Farragut’s] victories made possible Grant’s operations in Virginia and Sherman’s march to the sea. And the French government had been about to recognize the Confederacy before Farragut took New Orleans.”

After this great victory, Congress established the rank of rear admiral. Nine officers were given the rank, Farragut among them. His most brilliant military endeavor, however, had yet to take place.

The Battle of Mobile Bay

Sailing his flagship, USS Hartford, Farragut led a fleet of 18 ships, including four ironclads, toward Mobile Bay, off the coast of Alabama, with the objective of passing between Forts Gaines and Morgan. At 5:45 am on the morning of Aug. 5, 1864, the Union ships—with the smaller ships lashed to the port side of the larger ships to protect them from cannon fire from Fort Morgan located on the eastern tip of Mobile Point—began one of the most daring and important naval missions of the Civil War.

The Confederates had littered the coastline near Mobile Point with torpedoes (that is, mines). Early into the fight, as the Union ships came under fire from Fort Morgan’s guns and Confederate ships, the ironclad Tecumseh, which was leading the fleet into the bay, hit a torpedo and quickly sank. The Brooklyn, witnessing the Tecumseh, slowed. Hartford was behind the Brooklyn. Farragut demanded an explanation. The answer was torpedoes. The Union fleet, still under heavy fire from the forts and Confederate ships, had two options: retreat or sail through. To Farragut there was no option. The rear admiral, lashed to his rigging, responded adamantly: “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” Hartford quickly took the lead past Brooklyn, and guided the fleet between the forts and into Mobile Bay.

The sinking of the Tecumseh. Public Domain

The Union fleet now focused solely on the Confederate ships. Farragut directed the Union ships toward the Confederate’s lead vessel—the ironclad ram Tennessee. The vicious naval battle ended with the surrender of the Tennessee and the gunboat Selma. The other gun boats fled to the safety of Fort Morgan. Mobile Bay now belonged to Farragut and the Union. By Aug. 23, Fort Morgan, the last holdout, surrendered.

America’s First Admiral

On Dec. 31, 1864, in further appreciation of his victories and leadership, Congress created a new rank: vice admiral. Among the nine rear admirals, Farragut was the one promoted to this new rank. Also that December, the City of New York gave him a public reception and $50,000 ($1 million today) to build a home in the city.

On July 25, 1866, Congress passed another bill, enabling the president, now Andrew Johnson, to appoint Farragut as admiral. David Glasgow Farragut became America’s first admiral (and its first vice admiral). Interestingly, upon this appointment, the vice admiralty went to his half-brother David Dixon Porter.

The first major commission for the bronze sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens was of David Glasgow Farragut. The monument was unveiled in 1881 at Madison Square Park in New York City.

Monument of Adm. David Glasgow Farragut, 1880, by Augustus Saint-Gaudens. Madison Square Park, New York City. Om dette grænsesnit/CC BY 2.5

According to the U.S. Navy’s Naval History and Heritage Command, “The history of Farragut’s life is of importance less as a study of naval tactics, strategy and history than a study of the character of one whom many believe to have been the ideal of what a naval commander should be. He proved that kindliness, honor, love of friends and family, and a tolerant disposition are not incompatible with inflexibility in discipline and greatness as a warrior.”

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