Porter graduated from Harvard, studied at Heidelberg and Berlin, and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1857. He also authored plays, poems, and essays.[1]
His paternal grandfather was Col. Joshua Porter (1730–1825), a Yale College graduate, who fought in the Revolutionary War. He was at the head of his regiment in October 1777 when John Burgoyne surrendered his 6,000 men after the Battles of Saratoga. After the war, his grandfather was elected to various official positions for forty-eight consecutive years.[1]
On July 7, 1862, he offered his services to Gov.Edwin D. Morgan and was appointed Colonel, in the Union Army, of the 129th New York State Volunteers.[7] The regiment was reformed into the 8th New York Heavy Artillery Regiment on December 19, 1862.[8] His regiment, under Brig. Gen. Robert O. Tyler, was of a unit that manned the forts around Washington, D.C., and participated in parades used to increase morale in the city in the time of war. However, they were also trained to be used as infantry if necessary.[9] His reason for enlisting was reported in his eulogy printed in The New York Times,[1] where Porter was purported to have said:
In order to secure success, the gentlemen, the educated and influential men of the North must join the service, and discipline, educate and lead its armies; that it would not be wise to entrust their unprincipled lawyer, or that ignorant mechanic with a military command, subordinate or otherwise, merely because he possessed a degree of neighborhood notoriety and popularity; on the contrary that it would be cruel toward our soldiers and fatal to our cause to act thus.[1]
On September 5, 1863, Porter was nominated for New York Secretary of State but declined, saying that his neighbors had entrusted him with the lives of their sons and he could not leave them while the war lasted.[7] In May 1864, Porter's unit, like many Heavy Artillery regiments, was ordered by Grant (a distant cousin, though both likely did not know that) to join the Army of the Potomac then fighting in the overland campaign.[10]
In May 1864, during a lull in the Battle of Spotsylvania, a rebel soldier fired several shots at Porter while disguised by a tree. His men saw faint white smoke from the tree and six men shot at the tree, shooting the soldier. The soldier turned out to be a Confederate Captain who had been a prisoner at Fort McHenry while Porter commanded it and few days earlier had been paroled, but not exchanged. The soldier was badly wounded but stated that he had fired three times at Porter and hoped "to bring him down the next time," adding that "if I had killed him [Porter] I should die satisfied." Porter reportedly restrained his men from attacking the culprit with their bayonets.[1]
Battle of Cold Harbor
On June 3, 1864, during the Battle of Cold Harbor in Virginia, Brig. Gen. Tyler, who Porter's regiment reported to, was wounded. Tyler requested Porter take command of the brigade.[1] Porter then led the charge, advancing a short distance until he was shot through the neck. As reported in his eulogy, Porter "immediately rose and advanced again, but had moved only a few paces forward when he fell to rise no more".[1] The following night, five of his men, Sgt. Le Roy Williams, Galen S. Hicks, John Duff, Walter Harwood, Samuel Travis and John Heany, brought Porter's body, with six bullets still in him, through a rain storm back to the Union side. For his participation in recovering Col. Porter's body, Sgt. Williams was later awarded the Medal of Honor. Porter was first taken to Baltimore, Maryland, met by a military escort and then taken to the St. Peter's Episcopal Church, and there placed in the chancel draped in the flag of his country. Chaplain Gilbert De La Matyr accompanied Porter's body back to Niagara Falls.[9]
On November 9, 1859, Porter married Josephine Matilda Morris (1831–1892),[11][12] a daughter of George Washington Morris (1799–1834), cousin of Charles Manigault Morris (1820–1895), and granddaughter of Lewis Morris (1754–1824) and great-granddaughter of Lewis Morris (1726–1798) of Morrisania.[13] Josephine was born at Grove Plantation in South Carolina, but her father was born at the family seat, Morrisania, in Westchester County, New York. When her father died in 1834, Josephine was only three years old and her mother Maria Whaley Morris took over management of the plantation until Josephine's brother, George Washington Morris, Jr., took it over. George Jr. ran up huge debts and after his death in 1857, the house and 124 of the 136 slaves the family owned were auctioned in Charleston in January 1858. In November of the following year, Peter and Josephine were married, and moved a brand new house in Niagara Falls along with Porter's sister, Elizabeth Porter.[13] Together, they were the parents of two children:
Letitia Porter (1861–1864), who died five months after Porter of diphtheria.[13]
Porter's funeral was held at St. Peter's Episcopal Church, where he used to attend services when he lived in that city, led by Reverend Dr. Shelton, an Episcopal minister and the same that had given the same last rites to his father, his mother, and his wife. Following the funeral services at the church, his remains were carried to his final resting place in Oakwood Cemetery.
^Fox, William Freeman. Losses of the Eighth New-York Heavy Artillery, 2d Brigade, 2d Division, 2d Corps: August 22, 1862 – June 5, 1865 (New York: s.n.), 1887.
^ abCozzens, Frederic S. Colonel Peter A. Porter: A Memorial Delivered Before the Century in December, 1864 (New York: D. Van Nostrand), 1865.
^Dunn, Wilbur Russell. Full Measure of Devotion: The Eighth New York Volunteer Heavy Artillery (Kearney, NE: Morris Pub.), 1997. ISBN1-5750-2656-2
