MIDSHIPMAN TO LIEUTENANT.
1814-1825.
In common with the other survivors of the Essex, Farragut landed in the
United States as a paroled prisoner of war. Captain Porter took him at
once to Chester and put him again to school, this time to an old
gentleman named Neif, who had served in the guards of Napoleon. The
method of instruction practiced by him seems to have been unsystematic
and discursive; but Farragut, who was ever attentive to make the most of
such opportunities as offered for self-improvement, derived profit here
also, and said afterward that the time thus passed had been of service
to him throughout his life. Until very lately there were residents of
that neighborhood who could recall the young midshipman as he was at
Neif's school; a lad short of stature and not very handsome in face, but
who bore himself very erect because, as he often declared, he could not
afford to lose a fraction of one of his scanty inches. There was, and
still is, near the spot where he went to school a tavern called the
Seven Stars, which has been a public house since the time of the
Revolution, and which had sheltered Howe and Cornwallis as the British
army advanced from the head of the Chesapeake toward Philadelphia, in
1777. Upon its porch Farragut spent much of his leisure time, and within
its walls joined in the social gayeties of the neighboring families, who
afterward recalled with pride and interest this association with the
young sailor before whom lay such a brilliant but unforeseen future.
In November, 1814, Farragut was exchanged, and at once ordered to New
York to join the brig Spark, which was intended to form one of a
squadron of small vessels to cruise against British commerce under the
command of Captain Porter. He was here for the first time separated from
his guardian and thrown wholly upon his own force of character to guide
his steps; and this beginning was made with a set of messmates with whom
he was temporarily quartered on board the John Adams, among whom were
several very wild young men. Farragut evidently felt the force of the
temptation, for he speaks with warm thankfulness of the
counter-influence of the first lieutenant, to which he attributed much
of his deliverance from the dissipation by which he was surrounded.
"When I have looked back with a feeling of horror to that period of my
life," he wrote, "I have always remembered with gratitude Mr. Cocke's
counsels and kind-hearted forbearance." It was indeed characteristic of
the man that, while by no means insensible to the natural temptations of
youth, he was ever more attracted to and influenced by the good than by
the evil around him. During the following year, on his cruise to the
Mediterranean, he was messmate with a midshipman named William Taylor, a
young man of singularly fine character, which seems to have been the
chief cause of the influence he exerted upon Farragut. "He took me
under his charge, counseled me kindly, and inspired me with sentiments
of true manliness, which were the reverse of what I might have learned
from the examples I saw in the steerage of the John Adams. Never having
had any real love for dissipation, I easily got rid of the bad
influences which had assailed me in that ship." He noted also that, of
the twelve or thirteen midshipmen there associated with him, in less
than two years all but one, his old messmate Ogden, of the Essex, had
disappeared from the navy. The habit of strict attention to duty which
he had contracted under the rule of the Essex also contributed, by
keeping him occupied and attentive, to deter him from yielding to
practices incompatible with its due discharge.
The conclusion of peace put an end to the proposed cruise of the Spark,
and Farragut was next ordered, in March, 1815, to the Independence, a
seventy-four-gun ship, or ship-of-the-line, as such were commonly
called. She was the flag-ship of a numerous squadron, composed mostly of
small vessels, destined to act against Algiers, with whom war had
recently been declared. Upon arriving in the Mediterranean it was found
that Commodore Decatur had already brought the Dey to terms, so that
Farragut saw here no more fighting, and the squadron returned home by
winter. The following spring he was ordered to the Washington, also a
seventy-four, about to sail for Naples, bearing on board Mr. William
Pinkney, our minister to that court. This cruise gave our young
midshipman an experience of a kind he had not before had, and which in
more ways than one was useful to him. The Washington was one of those
exceptional vessels which illustrated in the highest degree the kind
and pitch of perfection to which, by unremitting severity and exaction,
the appearance and drills of a ship-of-war could be brought. Her
commander, Captain Creighton, had the reputation of being the greatest
martinet in the navy; and being seconded by a singularly efficient and
active set of officers, the ship was made to realize the extreme ideal
of a naval officer of that day in smartness, order, and spotless
cleanliness.[B] "But," says Farragut, "all this was accomplished at the
sacrifice of the comfort of every one on board. My experience in the
matter, instead of making me a proselyte to the doctrine of the old
officers on this subject, determined me never to have 'a crack ship' if
it was only to be attained by such means." His feeling on the matter was
doubtless somewhat quickened by the personal discomfort which he, in
common with all subordinates, underwent under such a system, although he
was rather a favorite with the captain, whose aid he was; but it shows
independence of character to have thought so clearly for himself at such
an age, and to have ventured to differ from standards which were then,
and for a long time afterward, implicitly accepted throughout the
service. The tradition of those days, being mainly oral, has nearly
disappeared; but fragments of it remain here and there in the minds of
those who, as youngsters thirty or forty years ago, were brought in
contact with men, then already elderly, who had had personal experience
of ships like the Washington. These stories, in their grotesque
severities, have almost the air of an extravaganza. It must, however, be
in justice remembered that they were the extravagances of a few among
the men who had brought the United States Navy to the high efficiency in
which it then was; and to whom, and not to either the people or the
Government of that day, was due the glorious record of 1812. A few of
them added to their military ardor and efficiency an undue amount of
that spirit of the good housekeeper which makes a home unbearable.
Farragut was aided to his wise conclusion by his previous experience in
the Essex, where a high state of efficiency was gained without wanton
sacrifice of comfort; for Porter, though a man of hasty temper, was ever
considerate of his crew. But for the naval officers of that day Farragut
throughout his life retained a profound admiration. Talking about them
at his dinner-table in New Orleans fifty years later, but a few days
before his famous passage of the Mobile forts, he said: "We have no
better seamen in the service to-day than those gallant fellows
Bainbridge, Decatur, Hull, Perry, Porter, and Charles Stewart; and," he
added, "I must not forget to mention McDonough, and poor unlucky
Lawrence, as splendid-looking a sailor as I ever saw. If I only had
their chance and could lay the Hartford alongside of an English ship, I
should like it better than fighting our own people." Some years later he
again expressed the same feelings to the same friend, to whom the author
is indebted for the communication of them. His own glorious career was
then finished, and his life's work lay open to the mature reflection of
his declining years, when he thus acknowledged his obligations to the
heroes of his boyhood. "Isaac Hull," he said, "was as good a seaman as
ever sailed a ship. If I have done the country any service afloat, it is
in no small degree owing to the ambition and enthusiasm he created in
me, when I was a youngster, by his fair fight with and capture of an
English frigate. I always envied Hull that piece of good work." It is to
be suspected that the Admiral always felt that something was lacking to
the fullness of his cup, in that he had only been allowed to fight
forts, and not ships like his own; and it is no small evidence of the
generosity of his character that his enthusiasm was so aroused by the
deeds of others. He spoke of the fight between the Kearsarge and the
Alabama in as glowing terms as were aroused by his recollection of the
Constitution and the Guerrière. "I had sooner have fought that fight,"
he wrote, "than any ever fought upon the ocean."
[Footnote B: The writer remembers to have heard in his early days
in the service a tradition of a ship commanded by Creighton, which
he believes to have been the Washington, and which illustrates the
methods by which this extreme smartness was obtained. In each boat
at the booms was constantly a midshipman in full dress, cocked hat
included, so that no time might be lost in dropping alongside when
called away. The full crew was probably also kept in her.]
The Washington stopped a few days at Gibraltar, where the rest of the
squadron were then at anchor; and then sailed with all of them in
company to Naples. During the remainder of the year 1816 the ship
cruised along the Barbary coast until the winter had fairly set in, when
she with the other vessels repaired to Port Mahon. Although now so close
to the spot where his race originated, Farragut's journal betrays no
interest in the fact. He was still too young for the sentimental
considerations to weigh much in his mind; and it was not till many years
later, in the height of his glory as a naval commander, that he visited
his father's birthplace, Ciudadela, the capital city of Minorca. In the
following spring the squadron resumed its cruising and made quite a
round of the Mediterranean west of Italy; the journal mentioning visits
to Gibraltar, Malaga, Leghorn, Naples, Sicily, and the cities on the
Barbary coast. Farragut made full and intelligent use of the
opportunities thus afforded him for seeing the world; and his assiduous
habit of observation did much to store his mind with information, which
the circumstances of his early life had prevented his gaining in the
ordinary ways of school and reading. He was fortunate also at this time
in having the society of an intelligent and cultivated man, the chaplain
of the Washington, Mr. Charles Folsom. The chaplain in those days was
commonly the only schoolmaster the midshipmen had; and their
opportunities of learning from him depended very much upon the pressure
exercised by the captain to compel the attention of a set of boys. Mr.
Folsom, however, was drawn to Farragut by the eager willingness of the
latter to acquire, and by his sense of his deficiencies. The manly
character which had resisted the temptations to low dissipation, and
sought naturally the companionship of the better rather than the worse
among his associates, also attracted him. The friendship thus formed
became, through a series of incidents, the cause of an unusual
opportunity for improvement being offered to Farragut. In the autumn of
1817 Mr. Folsom received the appointment of consul to Tunis, which had
just been vacated. The summer cruising of the squadron was drawing to an
end, and the winter quarters at Port Mahon about to be resumed.
Therefore, while the Washington was lying in Gibraltar, Mr. Folsom
wrote to the commander-in-chief, Commodore Chauncey, asking permission
to take the young midshipman to spend the winter with him in Tunis, to
pursue his education under his care. In the letter he spoke very
earnestly of his pupil's zeal for improvement, of his close attention,
and ready response to any effort on the part of his instructor. The
letter is interesting also in its recognition of Farragut's still
existing relations to Captain Porter, "to whose wishes this request can
not be repugnant." The letter was dated October 14, 1817; and, the
required permission being given, the two friends in the following month
sailed from Gibraltar for Marseille as passengers in the sloop-of-war
Erie. At Marseille a slight incident occurred which, while not quite
creditable to our hero, may have interest as showing natural character.
Spending the evening at the house of a Mr. Fitch, he was, much against
his will, obliged to play whist, for which he had no fondness. "Not
getting along very well with my hand, the party showed great impatience,
and I thought were rather insulting in their remarks. One individual
went so far as to dash his cards on the table in derision of my play,
when I returned the compliment by throwing them at his head. I
apologized to Mr. Fitch and retired, much mortified, but my temper had
been sorely tried." The display of temper was scarcely more than the
provocation justified; and it is noteworthy that during a period when
dueling was so common Farragut, though quick to resent, appears never to
have been involved in a serious personal difficulty.
Early in 1818 the Erie, carrying Mr. Folsom and his pupil, arrived in
Tunis, where the latter remained for nine months, pursuing his studies
on the site of the ancient maritime empire of Carthage. He mentions
particularly the subjects of mathematics, English literature, French,
and Italian. For languages he had great natural aptitude, and in later
life was able to converse in several. The monotony of study was varied
by the society of the few but agreeable foreign families residing in
Tunis, and by occasional excursions in the neighborhood; when the
interest of the present was happily blended, under the guidance of such
a man as Mr. Folsom, with thoughts upon the past grandeur and history of
the Carthaginian empire and the Roman province which had successively
flourished on that soil. In one of these excursions Farragut received a
partial stroke of the sun, from the effects of which he suffered for
many years.
The period of his stay in Tunis exceeded the original intention, but
doubtless with the approval of the commodore. It was brought to a close
in the fall of 1818 by an outbreak of the plague, which increased to
such an alarming extent that Mr. Folsom felt compelled to send his
charge away just when the approach of another winter of comparative
idleness for the squadron would have justified a longer stay. But deaths
in Tunis had risen to a hundred a day, and all the families were living
in a state of complete isolation, the houses being barricaded against
outsiders; therefore on the 9th of October Farragut departed in a
Genoese brig for Leghorn. Thence, after a quarantine of forty days, he
went to Pisa; and from there to Messina, where the squadron had
assembled for the winter of 1818-'19.
The friendship between Farragut and Mr. Folsom did not end with this
separation. The latter survived to the end of the civil war, and was
thus privileged to follow the successful and great career of the admiral
to whom, while yet an unformed boy, he had thoughtfully extended a
helping hand. As late as 1865 letters passed between the two, showing
that both cherished warm recollections of that early association; Mr.
Folsom dating his, as though careful to make the coincidence, on the
anniversary of the day when he parted with his pupil in the harbor of
Tunis and returned alone to the plague-stricken city.
The officers of the United States squadron passed a gay winter in
Messina in 1819. Farragut was not yet eighteen years of age, but his
bodily development had kept pace with his mental, and he writes that he
always held his own at this time in all athletic exercises. The
succeeding spring and summer were again spent in routine cruising on
board the Franklin, seventy-four, which had taken the place of the
Washington. In the fall of 1819 the squadron was in Gibraltar; and
there, "after much opposition," Farragut was appointed an acting
lieutenant on board the brig Shark. This promotion, coming at so early
an age, he afterward looked upon as one of the most important events of
his life. "It caused me to feel that I was now associated with men, on
an equality, and must act with more circumspection. When I became first
lieutenant, my duties were still more important, for in truth I was
really commander of the vessel, and yet I was not responsible (as
such)--an anomalous position which has spoiled some of our best
officers. I consider it a great advantage to obtain command young,
having observed, as a general rule, that persons who come into authority
late in life shrink from responsibility, and often break down under its
weight." This last sentence, coming from a man of such extensive
observation, and who bore in his day the responsibility of such weighty
decisions, deserves most serious consideration now, when command rank is
reached so very late in the United States Navy.
After a short year in the Shark Farragut was ordered to return to the
United States, to pass the examination required of all midshipmen before
they could be confirmed to the rank of lieutenant. No opportunity
offering for passage in a ship-of-war, he embarked in a merchant vessel
called the America. On the passage he found himself, with the ship,
confronted by an apparent danger, which occasioned a display of the
fearlessness and energy always latent in his character. Those were days
when piracy was rife upon the seas in the neighborhood of the West
Indies and of the Spanish Main. The system was an outgrowth of the
privateering carried on by French and Spanish marauders, for they were
little better, against both British and neutral commerce during the wars
of the French Revolution and Empire; and it had received a fresh impulse
from the quarrel then existing between Spain and her American colonies,
which since 1810 had been in revolt against the mother country.
Privateering, having booty as its sole motive, rapidly tends to
indiscriminate robbery, if not held strictly responsible by the country
using it; and the remote, extensive, and secluded shores of Cuba, Haïti,
and the South American coast defied the careless supervision of the weak
Spanish Government. When within a few days' sail of the United States,
the America fell in with an armed brig showing the colors of the new
Colombian republic; but a flag was little guarantee for the character of
a vessel if other signs told against her. Farragut describes both
captain and crew of the America as being so overwhelmed with fear that,
though expecting no mercy, they entertained no idea of resistance. Under
the circumstances he took command; and having, fortunately, as
passengers two seamen from the squadron going home sick, these formed a
nucleus around which rallied the courage of the others, paralyzed only
through disuse. It was, however, the firmness of the lad of eighteen,
supported by his position as an officer and acting upon the two men
prepared to recognize him as such, that redeemed the others from
imbecility to manhood. The incident had no results, the stranger proving
to be a regularly commissioned cruiser, and treating them with civility.
Farragut's thoughtful, not to say philosophical, turn of mind was shown
in his recorded reflections upon the difference between the conduct of
the man-of-war's men and the merchant seamen, which he justly attributed
not to inherent difference of natural courage, but to the habit of arms
and of contemplating danger under a particular form.
On the 20th of November, 1820, Farragut again landed in the United
States, having been absent four years and a half. He felt himself a
stranger, having left as a mere boy, and knowing no one but Commodore
Porter and his family. His examination soon followed, and was passed;
but apparently not quite to his own satisfaction. A period of
comparative quiet followed, spent principally in Norfolk, Virginia,
during which he formed the attachment which resulted in his first
marriage. In May, 1822, he was again ordered to sea in the sloop-of-war
John Adams, in which he made a short cruise in the Gulf of Mexico and to
Vera Cruz, where the Spanish power in Mexico was then making its last
stand in the well-known fortress, San Juan de Ulloa. The ship returned
to the United States early in December, 1822, when Farragut found the
Mosquito fleet, as it was called, fitting out against the pirates of the
Caribbean Sea. Learning that it was to be commanded by his old captain,
Commodore David Porter, he asked for and obtained orders to the
Greyhound, one of the small vessels composing it, commanded by
Lieutenant John Porter, a brother of the commodore.
Since the peace with Great Britain, Captain Porter had been a member of
the Board of Navy Commissioners; a body of three officers appointed by
an act of Congress passed early in 1815, whose duties were to administer
the affairs of the navy under the supervision of the Secretary.
Meanwhile the sufferings, not only of American property but of the
persons of American citizens, from the prevalence of piracy in the
Caribbean Sea, had become unendurable. Ordinary naval vessels were, from
their size, unable to enforce a repression for which it was necessary to
follow the freebooters and their petty craft into their lairs among the
lagoons and creeks of the West India islands. The general outcry rousing
the Government to the necessity of further exertion, Captain Porter
offered his services to extirpate the nuisance; with the understanding
that he was to have and fit out the kind of force he thought necessary
for the service. He resigned his position on the board on the 31st of
December, 1822; but before that date he had bought and begun to equip
eight Chesapeake schooners, of fifty to sixty tons burden, of which the
Greyhound, Farragut's new vessel, was one. He also built five rowing
barges, unusually large, pulling twenty oars. With these, supported by
the ordinary man-of-war schooners, of which several were already in the
service, and by the sloops-of-war, he expected to drive the pirates not
merely off the sea, but out of their hiding-places.
The commodore put to sea with all his squadron on the 14th of February,
1823. A northeast gale was at once encountered, but the tiny vessels ran
through it without any harm. For the next six months Farragut was
actively employed in the operations of the little fleet, the Greyhound
being one of the five which were sent through the Mona Passage, between
Porto Rico and Haïti, and thence ransacked the southern shores of the
latter island and of Cuba as far as Cape San Antonio, where Cuba ends.
There were many encounters between the pirates and the squadron,
sometimes afloat, sometimes ashore, in several of which our officer
served, forcing his way with his party through marsh and chaparral and
cactus--a service often perilous, always painful and exhausting. His
health fortunately held out through it; nor did he take the yellow
fever, which, as the summer wore on, made sad havoc among both officers
and men. Toward the end of his time he obtained the command of one of
the Mosquito schooners, which, however, he held but for a short period;
for, not having yet received his lieutenant's commission, he was
relieved by the arrival of an officer of that rank. An interesting
incident of this cruise was a meeting with his brother William, then
already a lieutenant, whom he had not seen for thirteen years. Soon
after that he obtained permission to visit New Orleans; and it is a
curious coincidence that the vessel in which he took passage thither was
carrying the first load of bricks to build Fort Jackson, one of the
defenses of New Orleans, by the passage of which nearly forty years
later he began his career as commander-in-chief. His father had then
been many years dead; but he met his sister, with whom he had to make
acquaintance after so long a separation.
The service of the Mosquito fleet was one of great exposure and
privation. "I never owned a bed during my two years and a half in the
West Indies," wrote Farragut, "but lay down to rest wherever I found the
most comfortable berth." It was, however, effectual, both directly and
indirectly, to the suppression of piracy; seconded as it was by the navy
of Great Britain, interested like our own country in the security of
commerce. Driven off the water, with their lurking-places invaded, their
plunder seized, their vessels burned, their occupation afloat gone, the
marauders organized themselves into bandits, and turned their predatory
practices against the towns and villages. This roused the Spanish
governors from the indolent complacency with which they had watched
robberies upon foreigners that brought profit rather than loss to their
districts. When the evil was thus brought home, the troops were put in
motion; and the pirates, beset on both sides, gradually but rapidly
disappeared.
This Mosquito war had, however, one very sad result in depriving the
navy of the eminent services of Commodore Porter. In 1824 a gratuitous
insult, accompanied by outrage, offered to one of his officers, led him
to land a party at the town of Foxardo, in Porto Rico, and force an
apology from the guilty officials. Although no complaint seems to have
been made by Spain, the United States Government took exception to his
action and brought him to trial by court-martial. Porter confidently
expected an acquittal, having proof that the outrage was wanton, and
that the officials had engaged in it to protect some piratical plunder
which had been taken into the place. He argued also that the wording of
his orders from the department authorized his action. The court,
however, found him guilty of an offense which was charged as
"disobedience of orders, and conduct unbecoming an officer," and
sentenced him to six months' suspension. The sentence was accompanied by
the expression that the court "ascribes the conduct of the accused which
is deemed censurable to an anxious disposition, on his part, to maintain
the honor and advance the interest of the nation and of the service."
Indignant at the result, Porter resigned from the navy and took service
with the Mexican Republic. After spending there four years of harassing
disappointments, the election of General Jackson to the presidency gave
him a friend in power. He returned to the United States in October,
1829, under the encouragement of letters from persons closely connected
with the new administration. The President offered to nominate him to
his old position in the navy, but Porter declined "to associate with the
men who sentenced me for upholding the honor of the flag." This,
striking a kindred chord in Jackson's breast, elicited a warm note of
approval, and he appointed the commodore Consul-General to Algiers. The
conquest of that country by France put an end to the office before he
could assume the duties. The President then nominated him to be Chargé
d'Affaires to Turkey. He went there in August, 1831, became Minister
Resident in 1839, and died in this post in 1843.
After his return from the Mosquito fleet, Farragut married, on the 24th
of September, 1823, Miss Susan C. Marchant, the daughter of a gentleman
of Norfolk, Virginia. He was at this time far from well; fever, which
spared him while on that sickly service, having seized him upon arrival
in a healthier climate. It was probably due in part to this that two
years passed after his marriage before he again joined a ship. During
this period he spent some weeks with his bride in the house of Commodore
Porter, who had returned temporarily from his squadron to regain his
strength after a severe attack of yellow fever. This was probably his
last close personal association with his early benefactor, whom the
issue of the trial afterward separated from his country; but the
correspondence between the two continued through life, Farragut
maintaining to the last a grateful recollection of kindness shown to him
by one whom he termed his "most venerated friend and commander." As late
as 1835, writing from Constantinople in reply to a letter received from
his former ward, Porter, then an ailing and broken man, notices this
trait in him: "I have found in yours that treasure of a grateful heart
which should be so much prized. I have never looked for any other
return than what my feelings gave me, and to find such sentiments of
gratitude from you, after all others had forgotten that they had
received any benefits from me, is truly refreshing to the feelings." The
relations thus testified to are an honor to the memory of both.