Correspondence, journals, logbooks, orders, reports, memoranda, family papers, drafts of articles, memoirs, poems, short stories, and other literary writings, sketches, photographs, and printed matter documenting David D. Porter's naval career. Includes material on his years as a midshipman, his service in the Mexican War, his trips to the Mediterranean to secure camels for the use of the U.S. Army, his Civil War service, his superintendency of the United States Naval Academy, his mission to Santo Domingo concerning the lease of Samaná Bay in the Dominican Republic, and his career as an advisor to the Navy Dept. (1870-1891) and chairman of the U.S. Navy Board of Inspection (1877-1891). Includes material on Union naval strategy during the Civil War and the need for naval reform. Correspondents include his mother, Evelina Anderson Porter, and Charles A. Boutelle, David Glasgow Farragut, Gustavus Vasa Fox, Gwinn Harris Heap, George M. Robeson, William T. Sherman, and Gideon Welles.

Papers of Porter's father, David Porter (1780-1843), also a naval officer, relate to his command of the schooner Enterprize (1805-1806) and the frigate Essex (1811-1814), his command of the West Indies squadron for the suppression of piracy in the Caribbean, the naval expedition to Fajardo, P. R., his role as commander-in-chief of the Mexican navy (armada), and his American diplomatic service in Algeria and Turkey. Correspondents include his wife, Evelina Anderson Porter, and Paul Hamilton, Joel Roberts Poinsett, John Rodgers, Thomas Shields, Samuel L. Southard, and Oliver Wolcott.