David Dixon Porter quotes - page 2
![[T]he navy performed its part of the operations. (David Dixon Porter)](https://cdn.quotesdtb.com/img/quotes_images_webp/71/david-dixon-porter-navy-312871.webp)
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 upon these ignorant blacks with a grace that could not be excelled. He really seemed of another world.
David Dixon Porter
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 preserve the Union. This was my view of the subject, and I tried to impress it upon others, and succeeded in excluding politics from the mess-table.
David Dixon Porter
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 about the President with his companions and let us pass on.
David Dixon Porter
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 for feelings he did not possess; he was as guileless in some respects as a child. How could one avoid liking such a man?
David Dixon Porter
Lincoln had a wonderful faculty for understanding the topography of a country, and he was quite familiar with the one in which the army was about to operate; he carried a small chart in his pocket, on which were marked all the rivers and hills about Richmond, with the city itself, and the different points where General Lee had his forces posted, the lines of defense, and, in fact, all the information that a general of an army wanted. During our rides which were always within the lines he would stop and spread out his chart on his knees and point out to me what he would do if he were the general commanding, taking good care, at the same time, never to interfere in any way with General Grant, whom, I rather think, he considered the better strategist of the two.
David Dixon Porter
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 sun, and such a means of attack has been employed before.
David Dixon Porter
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 except a scientific military man; besides, if you take troops from Grant and Sherman to give them to McClernand, you will weaken the army.
David Dixon Porter
I had often heard of the wonderful power of the President in telling anecdotes, but no one could form an adequate idea of his ability in this line unless he had been alone with him for ten days as I was. He had an illustration for everything, and if anything particular attracted his attention he would say, 'That reminds me of something that occurred when I was a lawyer in Illinois,' or 'when I was a boatman on the Mississippi.' He was not at all ashamed of any business he had ever been engaged in, because it was honest business, and he made an honest living by it; and he told me many stories of his earlier life, which were as creditable to him as anything he was engaged in while occupying a higher sphere.
David Dixon Porter
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 preceding us, and an equally dense crowd of blacks following on behind all so packed together that some of them frequently sang out in pain.
David Dixon Porter