Admiral David Glasgow Farragut
(1801-1870)
United States Navy

Accession number:
1891.01

Maker:
S. Jerome Uhl
(1842 – 1916)

Historical period:
1891

Miltary branch:

Wars and Conflicts:
, ,

Type:

Dimensions:
H x W: 30 in. / 25 in.

Acquisition date:
1891

Credit line:
Gift of Navy Members of The Army and Navy Club

Location:
,

Provenance:

From 1891: The Army and Navy Club, gift of its Navy members

Label:

David Glasgow Farragut was the first officer in U.S. naval history to hold the ranks of rear admiral, vice admiral, and admiral. He is remembered for his legendary order at the 1864 Battle of Mobile Bay, popularly paraphrased as: “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.” He remained on active duty for life, an honor shared with only six other U.S. Naval Officers. He also began his naval career at an astonishingly early age, fighting in the War of 1812 aboard the USS Essex at the age of eleven, under his foster father, Captain David Dixon Porter. Two classes of destroyers, launched in 1934 and 1958, bear Farragut’s name.

Farragut Square, one of the open spaces included in Pierre L’Enfant’s original 1791 plan for Washington, D.C., became home to Farragut’s statue in 1881. The bronze figure—cast from a propeller of the admiral’s Civil War flagship, USS Hartford—still stands watch today. The United Service Club was founded a few years later in 1885, several blocks away on the second floor of a German gasthaus. In 1891, it was renamed The Army and Navy Club and relocated to its first clubhouse on the southeast corner of 17th and I Streets. In 1912, the Club moved across the square to its present home on the northeast corner, where Farragut’s statue stands in enduring tribute just steps from our front doors.