Daniel Patterson

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Daniel Todd Patterson (6 March 1786 – 25 August 1839) was an officer in the United States Navy during the Quasi-War with France, the First Barbary War and the War of 1812.

Patterson was born on Long Island, New York. His father, John Patterson, was a younger brother of Walter Patterson, who was the first Royal Governor of Prince Edward Island (then named St. John's Island). John and Walter came to America in the 1750s from Ramelton or Rathmullan, County Donegal, Ireland, and served in the British Army in the French & Indian War. Daniel Patterson's mother, Catherine Livingston, was a daughter of the "Third Lord of the Manor" of Livingston, Robert Livingston (1708-1790). James Duane, a respected lawyer, patriot, New York politician, and judge, was Daniel Patterson's uncle (by marriage to Patterson's aunt, his mother's sister Mary Livingston).

As acting midshipman, he joined sloop of war Delaware, 11 June 1799, to cruise against French privateers and warships in the West Indies to August 1800. Appointed Midshipman, U.S. Navy, August 20, 1800 (warrant subsequently altered to take rank from date of his original entry, June 11, 1799). After the war, was one of the Midshipmen retained in the Navy under the Peace Establishment Act, signed by President Adams in one of his last official acts, on 3 March 1801. On close of the Quasi-War with France, he resumed nautical studies, then had blockade duty off Tripoli in famed Constellation and Philadelphia. The motion pictures Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, and Persuasion (1995 film), portray this period and give a good sense of what life and service was like for young Patterson, albeit from the English perspective. He fell prisoner upon capture of Philadelphia, 13 October 1803, and remained a captive of the Barbary pirates until American victory over Tripoli in 1805.

Upon returning home, he spent much of his following years on station at New Orleans, Louisiana where he took command after the outbreak of the War of 1812. On 16 September 1814, Patterson raided the base of the pirate Jean Laffite at Barataria, Louisiana, capturing six schooners and other small craft. In that same month, he refused Andrew Jackson’s request to send his few naval units to Mobile Bay where Patterson knew they would be bottled up by a superior British fleet. Foreseeing British designs against New Orleans almost two months before their attack, Patterson, not Jackson, was the first to prepare to defend the city. The victory resulted as much from his foresight and preparations as from Jackson’s able fighting. His little fleet delayed the enemy until reinforcements arrived, then gave artillery support in defense of the entrenchments from which Jackson was never driven.

Patterson, highly commended by Jackson, received a note of thanks from Congress, and was promoted to Captain 28 February 1815. Patterson remained on the southern stations until 1824 when he became fleet captain and commander of flagship Constitution in Commodore John Rodgers’ Mediterranean Squadron.

Returning home in 1828, he was appointed one of the three Navy commissioners. He commanded the Mediterranean Squadron, 1832–1836. He then took command of the Washington Navy Yard in 1836, an office he held until his death at Wilmington, New Jersey, 25 August 1839. A rare book, "The Life of Gould, an Ex-Man-of-War's Man," by Roland Gould (1867), noted on a website of the Navy Department Library at the Washington Navy Yard, purportedly contains a first-person account of the death of Commodore Patterson.

Although D.T. Patterson is properly called a Commodore, during his years in the Navy this was not one of the hierarchical "line" ranks (see Commodore (USN)). Instead, "Commodore" applied to any officer in command of a fleet of two or more ships, regardless of the officer's "line" rank at the time, and regardless of whether the officer also held the dual role of commanding officer of one of the ships in the fleet. Thus Patterson was a Commodore at the time of the Battle of New Orleans because he commanded a fleet of ships, even though he was not promoted to the "line" rank of Captain until after the battle. He again became a Commodore when in command of the Mediterranean Squadron. Patterson was never an Admiral because in his day the highest "line" rank in the US Navy was Captain; the title Admiral was felt to smack of aristocracy and royalty, and did not become a "line" rank in the US Navy until the Civil War.

Three ships in the United States Navy have been named USS Patterson for him. His children include Carlile Pollock Patterson, Thomas H. Patterson, George Ann Patterson the wife of David Dixon Porter, and perhaps others. Patterson's wife, George Ann Pollock of New Orleans, is worth noting because her parents, George Pollock and Catherine Yates, and her maternal grandparents, Richard Yates and Catherine Brass Yates, all had their portraits painted by Gilbert Stuart in 1793-1794, and all four portraits are in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Richard Yates and his son-in-law George Pollock were successful merchants in New York, the firm Yates & Pollock, until driven out of business around 1800 as their ships and cargos were seized by French privateers during the Quasi-War. Pollock moved to New Orleans where his uncle Oliver Pollock, a financier of patriot operations in the Revolution, had been in business. Commodore Patterson's great-great-great-grandson, Edward Sisson, (see bio at http://www.youtube.com/user/sissoed) is currently writing a historical novel focusing on this part of Patterson & Pollock's lives). The portrait of Mrs. Richard Yates (Catherine Brass Yates) is particularly famous. Daniel Todd Patterson and his wife are buried in Congressional Cemetery, Washington, D.C.

This article includes text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.