Josiah Porter

Son of Cambridge, MA hotel keeper Zachariah Porter (1797-1864), he graduated from Harvard in 1852 and joined the Boston Light Artillery (later "Cook's Battery") that year. In 1860 he was a 30 year old lawyer living in the family hotel in Cambridge. He was commissioned First Lieutenant of the battery in December 1860 and mustered with them for 3 months Federal service on 18 May 1861. He then helped organize a 3-year battery, the First Battery (later "A"), Massachusetts Light, and mustered as their Captain on 28 August 1861.

He was with his battery was on the field at Antietam on 17 September 1862, but they were not engaged there.

He resigned his commission and was discharged on 27 September 1862.

By 1867 he commanded the 22nd Regiment, New York National National Guard, as Major. He was promoted to Colonel in 1869 then Major General and New York Adjutant General in 1886; he served in that post to his death of a stroke in 1894.

Photograph above is of Porter in early 1861, as Lieutenant in Cook's Battery, Boston Light Artillery, from the MOLLUS Massachusetts album.1 His service from Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines 2 Personal details from family genealogists, the US Census of 1860, and Brown.3 His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Caroline Hamilton Rice (1833-1916) in 1857 and they had 4 children.

There's a (1902) statue of him in Van Cortlandt Park, New York City.

An 1852 daguerreotype of him is in the Harvard collection.

06/28/1830; Cambridge, MA

12/14/1894; New York City, NY; burial in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA