Horace Porter

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Horace Porter, (1837-1921), American soldier and diplomat, was born in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, the son of David R. Porter, a wealthy ironmater who later served as Governor of Pennsylvania. He was educated at Harvard University. He graduated from West Point in 1860 and served in the Union army in the American Civil War, reaching the rank of brigadier general. He received the Medal of Honor at the Battle of Chickamauga. In the last year of the war, he served on the staff of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, writing a lively memoir of the experience, Campaigning With Grant (1897).

From 1869 to 1873, Porter served as Grant's personal secretary in the White House. Resigning from the army in December 1873, Porter became vice president of the Pullman Palace Car Company. He was U.S. Ambassador to France from 1897 to 1905, paying for the recovery of the body of John Paul Jones and sending it to the United States for re-burial. He received the Grand Cross Legion of Honor from the French government in 1904. In addition to Campaigning with Grant, he also wrote West Point Life (1866).

Porter was president of the Union League Club of New York from 1893 to 1897. In that capacity, he was a major force in the construction of Grant's Tomb.

[edit] External links

Modern Eloquence: Vol III, After-Dinner Speeches P-Z, available freely at Project Gutenberg, contains a number of speeches by Porter.