David Glasgow Farragut (b. 1801) was the United States Navy's first rear admiral. By his death in 1870, Farragut was America's first four-star admiral. It was a rank created especially to honor one of the Union's great heroes of the Civil War. Farragut was a career Navy officer of relatively undistinguished merit most of his life, sixty years old at the war's outbreak. By the same token, he was a professional in the art of war, in a conflict where the majority of its officers - North and South - were something else. That "something else" could be good - talented professionals in related fields - but was often the opposite: unqualified men whose rank was obtained via political connections. In such a situation, personal bravery and stupendous tactical errors frequently characterized the field of war. David Farragut distinguished himself as a man of personal bravery. More important, he directed the ships under his command with a solid grasp of strategic priority. He is most remembered today for the famous quote, probably paraphrased, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" at the Battle of Mobile Bay , but even his fury was based on calculated risk. It was a combination of personal honor and public responsibility that lifted David Glasgow Farragut from the near-disgrace of a sidewater desk job at war's beginning - to become one of its most respected heroes by its conclusion, a conclusion he helped not inconsiderably to ensure.
Although born in landlocked Tennessee, David Farragut's was a sailing family. His father died when Farragut was very young; in the tradition of apprenticeship and connections, the boy was adopted by Commander David Porter, a family friend and officer in the fledgling U.S. Navy. By 1810 Farragut was enlisted in the Navy as a midshipman, the lowest rank of junior grade officer. He alternated attending trade classes in Chester, Pennsylvania, with service aboard Porter's ship. When the War of 1812 b...