Short answers, pulled from the story.
David Dixon Porter became the second officer in U.S. Navy history to hold the rank of admiral, after his adoptive brother David G. Farragut. He was promoted to admiral on the 15th of August, 1870, following Farragut's death.
Porter commanded a flotilla of roughly twenty mortar boats that bombarded Fort Jackson and Fort St. Philip beginning on the 18th of April, 1862. His mortars distracted Confederate gunners while Farragut's fleet ran past the forts on the night of April 24, and Porter's sustained fire on Fort Jackson later caused its garrison to mutiny and surrender on the 28th of April.
Porter commanded the Mississippi River Squadron during the Vicksburg Campaign. He persuaded General Grant to send more than half the fleet past Vicksburg's batteries in darkness on the night of the 16th of April, 1863, losing only one vessel. A second run six nights later secured the transports Grant needed to cross the river. When Vicksburg fell on the 4th of July, 1863, Porter's acting rank of rear admiral was made permanent from that date.
David Dixon Porter was born in Chester, Pennsylvania, on the 8th of June, 1813. He died on the 13th of February, 1891, at the age of 77, after 62 years of active duty in the U.S. Navy. He is interred at Arlington National Cemetery.
Porter was appointed Superintendent of the Naval Academy in 1865 with a mandate to raise its professional standards. He revised the curriculum to reflect real naval life, introduced organized sports, enforced discipline, taught social graces, and installed an honor system intended to produce honorable officers. He also recruited younger war-distinguished officers to the faculty to ensure his reforms would outlast his tenure.
David G. Farragut was Porter's adoptive brother. Farragut's mother died in 1808 when Farragut was seven, and Commodore David Porter, David Dixon's father, adopted him. Farragut became the first U.S. admiral; Porter became the second. The two also served together in the Civil War, with Porter commanding the mortar flotilla under Farragut's command during the capture of New Orleans.