Brigadier-General Ellison Capers, Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 5, South Carolina
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

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[800] steamer Underwriter, near New Bern, N. C. In March, 1864, he was put in command of the Confederate steamer Juno, and ordered to proceed from Charleston to Nassau, N. P. But on the night the Juno sailed she foundered in a gale off the Carolina coast, and all on board perished, except the pilot and a seaman. Lieutenant-Commander Porcher was beloved by all who knew him, and by his death the country lost a brilliant officer and a gallant gentleman.

Anthony T. Porter, rector emeritus for over forty-four years of the church of the Holy Communion, of Charleston, and founder and rector of the Porter military academy, was born at Georgetown, S. C., January 31, 1828. He was educated at the Cotes school, Charleston, and the Mount Zion academy, Winnsboro, and left the latter institution to enter the counting house of Robertson & Blacklock, Charleston, where he remained until, in 1849, his grandfather, John Porter, bequeathed him two rice plantations near Georgetown. In 1852 he gave in his name to Bishop Gadsden as a candidate for holy orders, and he was ordained as deacon in 1854, and as priest in 1855. His first ministerial work was in charge of a mission on the old United States arsenal grounds. In 1858 he became chaplain of the Washington light infantry, the fourth to hold that office since 1807. As chaplain he went on active duty with this command which became Company A of the Hampton legion, at Manassas, in June, 1861, and when the light infantry was assigned to the Twenty-fifth regiment, he became chaplain of that regiment. He served in that capacity about two years, when at the request of Bishop Davis he was sent back for duty at Charleston. There General Hardee was a communicant of his church, and when the evacuation of the city became necessary in February, 1865, the general informed Dr. Porter, and advised him to accompany the troops. Desiring first to remove his family from Columbia, threatened by Sherman, he went there, and on the morning of his arrival the shelling of the city was begun by the Federal batteries. The destruction of Columbia, which followed, is graphically described in Dr. Porter's autobiography entitled, ‘Led on, Step by Step,’ published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, in 1898. He remained in Columbia a month, then removed his family to Anderson, and