David Dixon Porter

Such was the discipline of the navy at that time, and such the anxiety to conform to the law of Congress against spirituous liquors, that no officer or man in the service would take a drink out of a bottle unless it was marked 'Medicine.'

The passions which animated men in high places have died out, but Grant and Sherman still live, and are gratefully remembered by their countrymen for the invaluable services they rendered during the most trying times of the Republic's …

It was not a model style for the President of the United States to enter the capital of a conquered country, yet there was a moral in it all which had more effect than if he had come surrounded with great armies and heralded by the booming …

He did not say a monument to what, but he meant, I am sure, to leave it as a monument to the loyalty of our soldiers, who would bear all the horrors of Libby sooner than desert their flag and cause. We struggled on, the great crowd …

It was a minute or two before I could get the negroes to rise and leave the President. The scene was so touching I hated to disturb it, yet we could not stay there all day; we had to move on; so I requested the patriarch to withdraw from …

Twenty years have passed since that event; it is almost too new in history to make a great impression, but the time will come when it will loom up as one of the greatest of man's achievements, and the name of Abraham Lincoln — who of his …

His face was lit up with a divine look as lie uttered these words. Though not a handsome man, and ungainly in his person, yet in his enthusiasm he seemed the personification of manly beauty, and that sad face of his looked down in kindness …

It was a touching sight that aged negro kneeling at the feet of the tall, gaunt-looking man who seemed in himself to be bearing all the grief of the nation, and whose sad face seemed to say, "I suffer for you all, but will do all I can to …

I do think if I had given him two fence-rails to sleep on he would not have found fault. That was Abraham Lincoln in all things relating to his own comfort. He would never permit people to put themselves out for him under any circumstances.

The results of a battle pained him as much as if he was receiving the wounds himself, for I have often heard him express himself in pained accents while talking over some of the scenes of the war; he was not the man to assume a character …

In the strife between the North and the South there was no bitterness in Mr. Lincoln's composition; he seemed to think only that he had an unpleasant duty to perform, and endeavored to perform it as smoothly as possible.

It looked queer to me to see boxes labeled 'His Excellency, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America'. The packages so labeled contained Bass ale or Cognac brandy, which cost 'His Excellency' less than we Yankees had …

The navy and the powder-boat would be all-sufficient, and I rather liked the notion, as the expedition would be entirely a naval affair.

The army and navy had plenty of bad powder and worthless vessels in fact, material for half a dozen powder-boats if necessary. I don't know whether the general claimed the powder-boat as an original idea, but there is nothing new under the …

'Good wine needs no bush' is an old and good saying, and I think that the navy had very little cause to exculpate itself on any occasion when it co-operated with the army, and never entertained a difference of opinion when it came in …

[T]he navy performed its part of the operations.

[T]he navy must be an adjunct to the army, yet the officers and men of the navy should always have full credit for the service they perform.

I never encouraged officers to discuss politics at all, and, as a rule, officers of the navy were exempt from political bias, and considered that it was their duty to heartily support the Government in any measures which might be taken to …

Regulations of the Navy provide that medical officers shall exercise no military authority. If I give you a flag, the line officers will think I have gone crazy.

Great complaints were made by both sides as to whose fault it was that there was a failure, but I told the navy I didn't want to hear anything about it; they did not get through, and didn't get the fort, and the less said about it the …

Well, Mister President, with all due deference to you, I don't believe in natural-born generals except where they have had proper military training, and it seems to me the siege of Vicksburg is too important a matter to trust to anybody …

Why, Mister President, the general impression is that Grant won the battle of Shiloh; as he commanded the army, he would seem entitled to the credit.

There was a time not long ago when Vicksburg could have been easily captured, but it is now a second Gibraltar, and the navy alone could do nothing toward capturing it.

The people fairly went wild; they set fire to the cotton along the levees, and seemed determined that nothing valuable should fall into our hands. They did not apparently remember that, so far, our navy had respected private rights and …