DAVID FARRAGUT Biography - Pioneers, Explorers & inventors

 
 

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DAVID FARRAGUT

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.