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DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER
805 KIDDER BREESE SE -- WASHINGTON NAVY YARD
WASHINGTON DC 20374-5060
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David Glasgow Farragut, born at Campbell's Station, near Knoxville, Tenn., 5 July 1801, entered the Navy as a midshipman 17 December 1810. When only 12 years old, he was given command of a prize ship taken by Essex, and brought her safely to port. Through the years that followed, in one assignment after another he showed the high ability and devotion to duty which was to allow him in the Civil War to make an overwhelming contribution to victory and to write an immortal page in the history of not only the United States Navy but of military service of all times and nations. In command of the West Gulf Blockading Squadron, with his flag in Hartford he disproved the theory that forts ashore held superiority over naval forces, when in April 1862 he ran past Forts Jackson and St. Philip and the Chalmette batteries to take the great city and port of New Orleans (a decisive event in the war) and later that year passed the batteries defending Vicksburg. Port Hudson fell to him 9 July 1863, and on 5 August 1864 he won a great victory in the Battle of Mobile Bay, passing through heavy minefields (the torpedoes of his famous quotation) as well as the opposition of heavy batteries in Forts Morgan and Gaines to defeat the squadron of Admiral Franklin Buchanan. His country honored its great sailor by creating for him the rank of Admiral, never before used in the United States Navy. Admiral Farragut's last active service was in command of the European Squadron with Franklin as his flagship, and he died at Portsmouth, N.H., 14 August 1870.
(DD-300: dp. 1,190; l. 314'5"; b. 31'8"; dr. 9'4"; s. 35 k.; cpl. 95; a. 4 4", 12 21" tt.; cl. Clemson)
The second Farragut (DD-300) was launched 21 November 1919 by Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., San Francisco, Calif.; sponsored by Mrs. T. M. Potts; and commissioned 4 June 1920, Commander P. L. Wilson in command.
Farragut arrived at San Diego 3 July 1920, and was at once placed in reserve until 31 March 1922. Then she took up a regular training schedule along the west coast, from the Canal Zone to Oregon. On 27 July 1923, at Seattle, she took part in a review taken by President W. G. Harding, on his way home from a visit to Alaska. Returning to San Diego, she, with seven other ships, grounded on a foggy night on Honda Point, 8 September. Farragut alone was able to get clear with only minor damage, while the others remained stranded on the rocky shore.
In both 1924 and 1927, Farragut sailed into the Caribbean for fleet concentrations for maneuvers, in 1927 continuing north to visit New York, Newport, and Norfolk. Her first visit to the Hawaiian Islands was in the summer of 1925, during which she acted as station ship during the flight of seaplanes from the west coast to Hawaii. Again in the spring of 1928 Farragut exercised in the Hawaiians. She was decommissioned at San Diego 1 April 1930, and after scrapping, her materials were sold 31 October 1930, in accordance with the London Treaty for the limitation of naval armaments.