The Admiral and the Ambassador (46 page)

John Paul Jones's crypt in the Chapel at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis.

Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, reproduction number HABS MD,2-ANNA,65/1--23

Some 120 years after he slipped into death alone in his Paris bedroom, the hero was finally at rest.

Horace Porter was seventy-five years old in January 1913 and living a relatively quiet life with five servants in his home on Madison Avenue. In the years after he left Paris, he had initially maintained a high profile. He was part of the delegation representing the Roosevelt administration at the
Second International Peace Conference of the Hague in 1907, a gathering of diplomats aimed at trying to regulate the way wars were waged. In 1908 he accepted appointment to the navy's Board of Visitors at Annapolis. He became more active in the “patriotic groups,” such as the Navy League, for which he served as president, and chaired meetings of the International Law Society in Washington. He was elected president of the Legion of Honor, an association of living winners of the Congressional Medal of Honor.

In an odd juxtaposition, Porter also belonged for a time to the New York Peace Society, which began in 1906 to prod the United States and other nations to resolve disputes through mediation and arbitration, not war. Porter was accepted as a member in April 1909 at a meeting in which Andrew Carnegie warned presciently of growing frictions between England and Germany. Each nation directed a large navy sailing off the coasts of Europe, and chance encounters could easily turn into war, he cautioned. He urged the US government to lead the world in resolving disputes through the structures of international law and discussion, not weapons and invasions.

It's unclear whether Porter was present at that meeting, but after Carnegie finished speaking, another member, E. J. Malloy, rose to ask whether the Porter who had been added to the group that day was the same Porter who was serving as president of the Navy League—an organization whose sole purpose was to promote a strong US Navy. Yes, he was told, it was the same Porter. “It seems to me thoroughly inconsistent for a man to hold office in both these societies when the very raison d'être of each is determined to defeat the plans of the other,” Malloy said. He accepted that Porter could well be a man of peace, “but under existing circumstances it is ridiculous for him to hold office in this society.” Since there was no proscription in the Peace Society's bylaws, Porter was allowed to stay, and the chair of the meeting noted that some good might come of it. “Possibly the ameliorating effect of his association with us may induce him to stop his nefarious practices.”
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There was nothing nefarious about what Porter was doing, though. He had long been a champion of veterans and of the military—not surprising for a West Point graduate, Medal of Honor winner, and close friend of Ulysses S. Grant. Porter long identified himself as a military man. Even after he left France, he preferred to be called General Porter, rather than Ambassador Porter. Yet he was a proponent of peace. He believed
in diplomacy and mediation, but also that a big US military was a prerequisite for peace. Why he wanted to belong to the Peace Society, whose members tended to believe a nation with a big military was more likely to use it, is lost to history. But given the broad sweep of his affiliations, he could have just seen it as another way to fill his time with a good cause.

Porter also remained active in Republican politics. During an internal party squabble over whether to nominate New York governor—and future US Supreme Court chief justice—Charles Evans Hughes for reelection in 1908, Porter's name was tossed around as a compromise candidate. Hughes prevailed with his party but lost the general election.

Porter's most visible role tended to involve eulogizing the dead at funerals and unveilings of monuments. He spoke at the 1908 Washington, DC, dedication of a statue of General Philip H. Sheridan, who was part of the Civil War battle at Chickamauga for which Porter received his Medal of Honor. The next year he offered a eulogy to Abraham Lincoln at Carnegie Hall during a celebration marking the centennial of the president's birth, and he delivered the 1909 commencement address at the US Naval Academy. He spoke briefly at the 1912 dedication of the statue of John Paul Jones near the Potomac in southwest Washington in 1912, the year before the crypt was completed and Jones was finally laid to rest. That the statue was done before the crypt had to have galled the former general, but if it did, he kept those thoughts to himself.

By the time the crypt was finished and Jones was placed within his elaborate sarcophagus, Porter was beginning to slow down. A
New York Times
reporter visited him at his Madison Avenue home in April 1913, three months after that final dedication, and found the seventy-five-year-old man vigorous, with graying hair, an erect stature, and a thick vein of humility. Noting that Porter read six newspapers each morning, the reporter asked for his thoughts on the developing issues of the day, from politics to looming war in Europe. “Individual expression of opinion does not count for much where big issues are concerned,” Porter told him. “Nor would anything I might say be of journalistic importance.” One wonders why Porter agreed to the interview in the first place.

As World War I unfolded in Europe, Porter lent his name to various fundraising efforts to support the troops, but he was no longer chairing
meetings or running campaigns. Porter continued to make summer trips to West Long Branch, New Jersey, where his wife, Sophie, and their sons William and Horace M. were buried (soon to be followed by son Clarence in 1917). He also traveled to Newport, Rhode Island, and Bar Harbor, Maine, for the summer social season. Sometimes he rented a cottage; sometimes he stayed with well-heeled friends from Manhattan. His name popped up regularly in the society columns, as a guest at various weddings and as a financial supporter for a wide range of local causes. But as Porter neared his eightieth birthday, the pace of mentions became less frequent.

In June 1920, at age eighty-three, Porter was taken ill. Details are scant, but he was stricken while vacationing in Greenwich, Connecticut, at what was described as “his summer home” (presumably a seasonal rental). He was rushed back to his residence at Madison Avenue and Forty-First Street, a neighborhood of mansions under stress from Manhattan's growing appetite for skyscrapers. Appendicitis was diagnosed, and Porter underwent surgery to remove the failing organ. While the operation was successful, Porter never really recovered. Six weeks after his eighty-fourth birthday, Porter slipped into a coma. He died on May 29, 1921, nearly a year after he first fell ill. While the cause was ascribed to a general failure of health, the start of his decline was pinned to the bad appendix.

Before his death, Porter—whose history included arranging mass public displays of a nation's thanks to General Grant, McKinley's first inaugural parade, and the elaborate celebration commemorating John Paul Jones's contributions to both the nation's independence and its embrace of a strong navy—had ordered a simple observation of his own passing. No pallbearers. No eulogies. “I want the simplest funeral a man can have,” Porter said. “A word, a song, and a prayer.” And that's what he received on June 2, 1921, at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church. The coffin was ferried from his home in a hearse escorted by police motorcycles and then carried to the altar, where it was draped in the Stars and Stripes with Porter's cocked hat and ceremonial sword placed on top. The ceremony began with a choir singing “There Is a Land Beyond the Setting Sun,” followed by a prayer by pastor John Kelman, who managed to slip in a few words of eulogy despite Porter's request.
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“For all the great and noble lives dedicated to high services in Christ's name, we give Thee thanks,” the minister said.

For those who have not counted their own lives dear unto them, but have jeopardized their lives in the high places of the field, entering into the fellowship of His sacrifice, who gave His life for the redemption of the world, we give Thee thanks. For the high example of all upright men who have served their generation and especially today do we thank Thee for the long life and varied services of our brother now departed, for the high responsibility loftily borne and executed, for his service on the stern field of battle and on the fruitful fields of peace, for his life-long affection for his great commander, for all the share that Thou didst give to him in the international relations of the world, and for all that he did to keep these relations sound and friendly, for the world-wide fame, his fine culture, his courtesy and great simplicity and dignity, and for his distinguished self-control, we give Thee thanks. In him Thou didst grant to his generation one of Thy great gentlemen of the olden days, and we thank our God upon remembrance of him.

The pews were filled with, in essence, the survivors of a bygone era. Porter, the obituaries noted, was the last of Grant's intimate advisors. The mourners included Elihu Root, the former secretary of war, secretary of state, and 1912 Nobel Peace Prize winner; Chauncey Depew, a lawyer for Cornelius Vanderbilt, former railroad executive, and former US senator from New York; legendary financier J. Pierpont Morgan; Cornelius Bliss, Porter's former neighbor and cofundraiser for McKinley; and scores of others.

At the end of the service, the coffin was removed from the church and taken to a train for transport to a vault at the Old First Methodist Church Cemetery in West Long Branch, New Jersey, until Porter's daughter, Elsie Mende, could make the trip from Switzerland for a small, private burial next to Sophie and Elsie's three brothers.

It was a muted end to a long and public life. And while tourists and history buffs make regular trips to the crypt below the US Naval Academy chapel to contemplate Jones and the sweep of America's birth and its history, Porter's grave is just another headstone in a nondescript cemetery near the New Jersey coast.

C
RAFTING A STORY SUCH
as this involves finding and collating a lot of fine details from a wide range of sources. I tend to cast a wide net in my research and then sift through the treasures I've caught, which can make crediting individual sources for specific details a tedious task both for me and for the reader. So throughout this work I've opted to cite the sources for major details, but in scenes that are built from a number of sources, I chose not to footnote each fine point. Also, I mention weather often in descriptions of scenes and similarly decided not to clutter the footnotes with the source material for these details. In each case, this information was gleaned from accounts in local newspapers. Also, unless otherwise noted, the details of the dig itself came from Porter's reports and related accounts. Again, I opted not to footnote every detail. And finally, given the close scrutiny that John Paul Jones's life has endured, I opted not to do much primary research on such a well-documented subject; details in the three chapters that focus on him were gleaned primarily from the published works of others, duly cited in the footnotes. Those chapters were also graciously reviewed by Mark Lardas, naval historian and member of the Nautical Research Guild, to whom I'm indebted for saving me from some rather embarrassing errors.

While writing is a solitary pursuit, research is not, and I owe thanks to my wife, Margaret, and our Parkside Pub regulars, particularly Jann Gumbiner, Katherine Jacobs, and Laura McFarland, who've exhibited
remarkable patience as I've talked through this project; in-laws Joe and Helen Mercier, who let me use their attic space in Greece, New York, as a writing garret in the summer of 2012; my parents, Walter and Dorothy Martelle, for infusing me with a love of books and writing; James R. Wils, who provided research help at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina; Ray and Annie Herndon, Marc Midan, and Janine Lanza, who did valuable legwork for me checking Parisian archives (and a special thanks to Ray for some much-needed translation help); Cedric Guhl, Edouard Musy, and Karin Schindler of the extended Horace Porter family in Switzerland, who shared with me unpublished family papers; the staffs in the Library of Congress Manuscript Reading Room and the Newspaper Reading Room, two irreplaceable resources; the staffs of the National Archives in Washington, DC, and College Park, Maryland, particularly David Langbart and Richard Peuser, for their patience and guidance; longtime friend and former colleague Ivan Roman for his research help at the Navy Department Library, Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington, DC; and archivist James Allen Knechtmann, for his assistance to both Ivan and me. Thanks, too, go to Sarah Hartwell of Baker-Berry Library, Dartmouth College; Paul Mercer, Senior Librarian, Manuscripts and Special Collections, New York State Library; and James Cheevers, US Naval Academy Museum, Annapolis, who all provided crucial confirmations of stray facts. Also to Richard H. Owens, who shared his hard-to-find book
Vigilance and Virtue: A Biography of General and Ambassador Horace Porter, 1837–1921
(Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002), and to Susan Noftsker, a descendant of John Sherburne, for her help in deciphering some family lore. Obviously enough, their assistance does not carry a burden of blame; any errors in this work are mine and mine alone.